Roll Call

[mayday]

started on V3 in 1990
just turned in my two week notice to retire yesterday

You can't leave! all the plants are gonna die

[HTM01]

You can't leave! all the plants are gonna die

nope i moved it to Marc's office a month ago, it's doing fine

[pmartin]

I dug Mastercam V3 out of a box in the programming office in 92(The programmer was a Smartcam devotee.) I installed it on a shop floor pc and taught myself lathe and later milling. I had been writing programs for the lathes in my spare time using pencilcam and a calculator before that.

[byte]

Since this turned into a how I got started... I hired into basically a floor sweeper and learned the manuals from the old guy. Few years later we bought a Vertical, it was on me to figure how to run it.  After studying the Haas manuals and manually programming for a few months, it was time for some software.  I begged for Mastercam.  That was X2 timeframe

I couldn't find a job programming mastercam fresh out of school (2008), I ended up working in a job shop making tooling on a manual lathe for 12.50 an hour(not much more than minimum wage here). I kept up with practicing using the software when I could and reading the books until I found a better opportunity, then another, then another.

I had a hard time finding a programming job in my early career, but my knowledge of "advanced" cnc setups and manual machining definetly gave me an edge over a lot of other programmers..

[neurosis]

I had a hard time finding a programming job in my early career, but my knowledge of "advanced" cnc setups and manual machining definetly gave me an edge over a lot of other programmers..

In my experience, programmers without machining experience are worthless. What's worse, is some of the trade school programmers that have zero machining experience, you can't convince them that they don't know what they're doing so they're impossible to teach. 

That's great that you got out and got some experience.  And that you stuck with it after being put on a manual lathe.    We've had some kids come in to our shop in the last decade. We put them on a manual machine and they quit almost immediately. 

[Flycut]

Mastercam from day 1 here.
Was on the night shift and the programmer at the time was on contract and would work from remotely from home.
Everything he did would be displayed on the monitor of the computer next to the machine I was running.
I would run my machine and watch him program. I could message him on the computer while he was working If he knew I was watching he would switch from hot keys to mouse clicking so I could see what he was going for. If I had any question we would message back and forth. You don't come across many people willing to go out of their way like that very often.
As I say that I think how I'm talking to a bunch of guys here that do that all the time.
Thanks again everyone.

[byte]

In my experience, programmers without machining experience are worthless.

I recently trained a student from China who had never seen a Cnc machine before or a cad software how to use Mastercam.
He was very successful probably the best student I ever had, although I certainly never told him that.

[byte]

That's great that you got out and got some experience.  And that you stuck with it after being put on a manual lathe.    We've had some kids come in to our shop in the last decade. We put them on a manual machine and they quit almost immediately. 

Young minds don't do well with boredom, this explains a bit, why you have issues finding people.