Quote:
Originally Posted by justplugit
I've found machinists to be high in intelligence,a knack for
inovation and solving difficult porblems. Under paid for what they do for sure.
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It used to be mostly an art form. Technology has automated it a lot, but there still is a lot of skill (i.e. experience) involved. It's very common for machinists to hand edit g code on the fly to correct for a bad program or variation in materials. But with 5+ axis equipment that can get really tricky fast.
The technology trend is less art on the shop floor and more up front work to design the right process which is linked electronically to the 3D CAD model.
If you want to get really fancy, you can drive the milling operations, shop docs and the inspection routine from the same data.
SolidWorks is a popular mid-end design tool, but it's really limited when it comes to the more advanced stuff. But, seeing as how a lot of machine shops are really pretty small it fits a lot of needs.
-spence