Most older machine have been upgraded to run the new software, the days of punch tape feeders are now goneSomeone will correct me if I'm wrong as its been twenty years since i was near machine tools. The heritage (older) CNC machines required to be manually coded which made it a skilled job and depending on the piece to be manufactured expensive in small production runs. This was why people were employed and remunerated based on their experience of particular machines and controls such as Mazak etc.
I would assume now given the rise of companies like Fractory etc that software exists on the more modern machines to transcribe .DXF files straight to the machine. This will take away a lot of the specialism but would imagine the newer machines will be prohibitively expensive for small production runs.
Older machines will be cheaper to buy but come with the caveat that they need a certain aptitude to program and may have maintenance issues that could cost purchase price of machine to rectify.
Where i served my time the machine shop purchased a second hand CNC machine (turning centre) and don't recall any special training given to guy who manned it but there was a lot of trial and error in the beginning but it did work. It worked well for repeat productions that would have been time consuming on a manual lathe.
Ha ha forgot about them, firm i served time at bought a lot of stuff from cleveland twist drill site closing auction and there was skips full of punched paper that must have been from these incarnations.Most older machine have been upgraded to run the new software, the days of punch tape feeders are now gone
My Anderson cnc is 1989 but running on 2018 software
Was already converted whenI bought it 20yrs ago,Ha ha forgot about them, firm i served time at bought a lot of stuff from cleveland twist drill site closing auction and there was skips full of punched paper that must have been from these incarnations.
My memory of old stuff was control mounted on side of machine with vertical keyboard and monitor with green display......
Was it expensive to upgrade machine?
100% agree, im using Heidenhain control past 9 years in the company i work for, very handy to use, moved to nhx500 horizontal running celos control and fanuc, has me pretty confused at first,If you end up buying a milling one I’d try to get a Heidenhain controlled machine. Very simple to program compared to the likes of others in my own opinion.
Don’t get many lathes with a Heidenhain control though
Depends on the machine, some have proper manual controls, some have virtually no/extremely awkward controls and some have a halfway house setup that uses jog wheels to simulate the handles on a conventional mill. The problem I always found with not having proper manual controls is that you can't "feel" what's happening.What about using a cnc milling machine manually is that possible? Just for one off farm use nothing too accurate tbh. One sitting in my shed for storage/sale tempted to plug it in and see,,,, not really interested in the cnc bit
No manual controls on this at allDepends on the machine, some have proper manual controls, some have virtually no/extremely awkward controls and some have a halfway house setup that uses jog wheels to simulate the handles on a conventional mill. The problem I always found with not having proper manual controls is that you can't "feel" what's happening.