An excerpt From The Machining Center Video Course Facilitator's Manual

Before You Begin

Welcome to CNC Machining Center Programming and Operation! We hope you find that this course will help you train CNC people in as easy a manner as possible.

In conjunction with this manual, be sure to read the course description in the student manual. It provides more information about how this course is presented, including prerequisites, controls covered by this course, and instruction methods.

Be sure you have everything - Contents of this video course include:

Facilitator's manual (the manual you are currently reading) - This manual contains information about course content and how the course can be used. It also includes: A time outline that shows all information presented during the course and makes it easy to schedule time for students going through the course (the time outline also makes it easy to find information for reviewing purposes), grading sheets to analyze the students' understanding of course materials, an evaluation form that lets students express what they felt about the course (this form also includes the request for certificate), an order form to receive a complimentary subscription to our quarterly newsletter called The Optional Stop, and order forms for additional sets of student materials.

Mini-Vid: Machining Operations Performed On Machining Centers - This video provides a forty minute introduction to the most common machining center-related machining operations. If students have good basic machining practice skills, they can skip this presentation. But if they don't, this Mini-Vid will acquaint students with the operations we assume they understand as the course is presented.

Video tapes one through nine - These nine (two-hour capacity) video tapes contain the lecture and graphics of the course's twenty-four lessons. (The course is about 15.5 hours long.) Note that most of the tapes contain more than one lesson. Use the time outline (included this manual) to determine the location (tape number and vcr counter position) of each lesson.

Student manual - This course textbook follows along with the video presentations and will reinforce presentations made in the video course. Once the course is completed, this manual will provide an excellent way to review course information. It contains a programming section, and operation section, and the operation handbooks for the controls that this course covers. (Additional student manuals can be purchased using the order form at the end of this booklet.)

Workbook - This booklet contains all of the practice exercises and programming activities (one per lesson, twenty-four total) that students are asked to complete during the course. Additional workbooks can be purchased using the order form at the end of this booklet. Each exercise and programming activity is graded on a point system. Each has a maximum possible number of points and each response is given a point value. This should make it very easy for anyone, including people who have limited CNC experience, to grade a student's work.

Answers to practice exercises - This booklet contains the answers to the practice exercises and programming activities. Lesson grades can be recorded on the grading sheets (later in this manual) to get a quick view of how students are doing with the course.

This course also includes:

Certificate of successful completion - Once a student successfully completes the course (we depend solely upon your own evaluation of the student's successful completion), they are entitled to receive a certificate of completion. To receive their certificate, we ask that you have them complete the evaluation form (included in this manual) to let us know what they think of the course. At the end of the evaluation, there is space provided to let them fill in the appropriate information about the certificate they would like to receive.

Free phone and email assistance - If anyone has questions as they go through the course, we're here to help them. Note that this offer extends past the student's completion of the course. Should anyone be questioning how to approach a new (different) project, how to utilize some special feature not discussed in the course, or in general, need to discuss any topic of CNC in greater detail, be sure to contact us. Our email address is lynch@cncci.com. Our phone number is 847-639-8847.

The Optional Stop Newsletter - This quarterly newsletter contains tips, shortcuts, and special usage techniques for CNC programming, setup, and operation. Be sure to complete and send in the complimentary order form to ensure your receipt of this newsletter. If you like what you see, note that you can also purchase individual back issues for $10.00 each. Or you can get all back issues (over 35 issues) for $149.00. Again, appropriate forms are provided later in this manual.

The key concepts approach

Note that we're using our proven key concepts approach, which allows us to stress the reasons why things are done as importantly as how they're done. They also keep a light at the end of the tunnel for the student and make it easy to build upon previously presented information. There are ten key concepts, so if a student can master ten basic principles, they are well on their way to becoming proficient with CNC machining center usage.

Six key concepts are related to programming and four are related to operation. (The time outline provides more specific information about what is included in each key concept.)

Programming-related key concepts:

1) Know your machine from a programmer's viewpoint (lessons 1-7)

2) Prepare to write programs (lesson 8)

3) Motion types (lesson 9)

4) Three compensation types (lessons 10-13)

5) How to format your programs (lessons 14 & 15)

6) Special features that make programming easier (lessons 16-19)

Operation-related key concepts:

7) Know your machine from an operator's viewpoint (lessons 20 & 21)

8) The three modes of operation (lesson 22)

9) Key operation procedures (lesson 23)

10) How to safely verify and run CNC programs (lesson 24)

Lesson structure

We further divide these ten key concepts into twenty-four lessons. Here are the lessons as well as the approximate presentation time for each (note that this time does not include time for review or for doing practice exercises). The time outline that accompanies this course provides more detailed information related to what is covered in each lesson.

Lessons related to programming:

Mini-Vid: Machining operations performed on machining centers - 40 minutes

Lesson One - Machine configurations - 35 min

Lesson Two - The flow of program processing - 15 min

Lesson Three - Visualizing program execution - 20 min

Lesson Four - Understanding program zero - 26.5 min

Lesson Five - Locating program zero - 22.5 min

Lesson Six - Assigning program zero - 11 min

Lesson Seven - Introduction to programming words - 36.5 min

Lesson Eight - Preparation for programming - 26.5 min

Lesson Nine - Motion commands through linear 46 min

Lesson Ten - Introduction to compensation - 13 min

Lesson Eleven - Tool length compensation - 35 min

Lesson Twelve - Cutter radius compensation - 60 min

Lesson Thirteen - Fixture offsets - 30 min

Lesson Fourteen - Introduction to program formatting - 15 min

Lesson Fifteen - Four types of program format - 45 min

Lesson Sixteen - Canned Cycles - 60 min

Lesson Seventeen - Sub programming - 30 min

Lesson Eighteen - Other special programming features - 75 min

Lesson Nineteen - Rotary device programming - 45 min

Lessons related to operation:

Lesson Twenty - Tasks related to CNC operation - 40 min

Lesson Twenty-one - The two operation panels - 35 min

Lesson Twenty-two - The three modes of operation - 20 min

Lesson Twenty-three - The key procedures for operation - 55 min

Lesson Twenty-four - Safely verifying and running CNC programs - 30 min

In addition to the lessons, presentations include introductions to each key concept as well as summaries once a key concept is completed. These introductions and summaries take approximately ten minutes for each key concept.

The ten tapes:

The lessons are placed on ten (two-hour capacity) vhs tapes. Again, the time outline will show the exact starting point (vhs counter position) for each lesson so students can fast-forward right to the beginning of a lesson. Again, the total course time is just over 15.5 hours. Here are the lessons included on each tape (tapes are also appropriately marked):

Mini-Vid: Machining operations performed on machining centers (special bonus tape)

Tape number one: Lessons 1-4

Tape number two: Lessons 5-8

Tape number three: Lessons 9-11

Tape number four: Lessons 12-14

Tape number five: Lessons 15-16

Tape number six: Lessons 17-18

Tape number seven: Lesson 19

Tape number eight: Lessons 20-21

Tape number nine: Lessons 22-24

Lesson structure

Each lesson begins with a presentation plan to let the student know what is going to be presented in the lesson. We also specify the page number in the student manual that parallels the video presentation and specify how much time it will take to view the lesson. Lesson times range from ten minutes to over one hour. Each lesson ends with a lesson summary to confirm that the student knows what they should have learned in the lesson. A practice exercise must be done after each lesson (all exercises are in the workbook. Depending upon how you are using the course, students themselves can check their work against our answers or have the facilitator do so. If they did well, they can proceed to the next lesson when ready to do so. In the exercises for lessons nine through nineteen, students are asked to do programming activities. This gives them a chance to practice with realistic prints and programs. If of course, a student does poorly on a practice exercise or a programming activity, it should be taken as a signal that they need to go back and review the information that's giving them problems (remember that we offer free phone assistance for students having questions).

How to use this course

One of the benefits of this video course is its flexibility and ease of use. Here are some considerations.

Do you have a facilitator? - If you wish, the entire set of course materials can be given to the person or people needing to learn about CNC. As long as they are self-motivated, they can view each lesson, do the exercise, check it against our answers, and (if they did well) go on to the next lesson. But if you want a little more control of your in-plant training, you'll need a facilitator. The most basic purpose of the facilitator is to make it as easy as possible for students to complete the course. While an understanding of CNC is helpful, it is not mandatory for facilitators. Common facilitator responsibilities include scheduling time for students to view lessons, providing the student/s with appropriate video tapes, assigning and grading exercises, and if possible, answering questions students have as they go through the course.

Who gets trained? - Of course, novices in all capacities (programming, setup, and operation) will get the most out of this course. Additionally, this course makes cross-training quite easy. You may, for instance, want to bring a proficient CNC operator to a higher level, training them to be setup people or programmers. And don't be too quick to exclude experienced people from this course. If in the past they've been left to their own devices to figure out CNC usage, it's likely they can gain a great deal from viewing this course. Also remember that you can now include people in your CNC training program that may have been excluded in the past. Few companies, for example, will send design engineers, tooling engineers, quality engineers, and manufacturing engineers to CNC related training courses. Yet these people can have a big impact on your CNC operations. Now you can ensure that everyone has a good working knowledge of CNC machining center usage.

Where do you train? - With this video course you can train in your plant or in the student's home - anywhere there is a vcr and television. If, of course, you train in your plant, you'll have better control of the learning environment. Training of any kind should be in a quiet area that is free of interruptions and distractions. Students must, of course, be allowed to concentrate. If your people are taking the course home with them, be sure they're not getting too comfortable as they view the course. We've found that students can concentrate much better if they're sitting in an upright position at a desk or table (as opposed to being in a prone position on an easy chair). Also, if your people are taking tapes home, be sure you have a good method of tracking who has the video tapes. While we can supply replacements for lost tapes, most people don't discover a tape is missing until it's needed.

When do you train? - You can train on company time of after hours. While both methods are successful, some students are more motivated than others. If you want to guarantee the student's full attention, you should train during company time. If you have highly motivated people that are anxious to learn, they will be willing to learn on their own time.

Scheduling time - Using the time outline included in this manual, you can see just how much time it will take a student to view each lesson. You must keep in mind that we provide only the viewing time (no time is allowed for reviewing difficult information). Also, you must allow additional time for practice exercises (or assign exercises as homework). Many of the practice exercises will take about fifteen minutes to complete, but the exercises that have programming activities (lessons nine through nineteen) will take much longer.

Tracking the student's progress - we provide grading sheets to help you determine how well students are doing. We use a point system with each exercise to help you with grading. The point total's for each exercise can be recorded on the grading sheet. We recommend determining the percentage of correct answers to determine whether the student really understands the presented material.

What are you expecting of your people when they're finished with training? - This course contains presentations on CNC machining center programming, setup, and operation. Key concepts one through six (lessons one through nineteen) are related to programming. Key concepts seven through ten (lessons twenty through twenty-four) are related to setup and operation. To get the most out of the course, students should be allowed to complete the entire course. However, we understand that many companies want to be more specific with their training. If you just want people to learn more about programming, by all means, let them view only the programming portion of the course. On the other hand, the operation part of the course (lessons 20-24) can be used for training setup people and operators.

Truly, we've designed the course appropriately (each part can stand on its own). This having been said, we cannot over-stress the importance of an understanding of certain programming features even for CNC operators and setup people. While we've done a good job of relating the most important programming features during the operation part of the course, we do make references during operation to discussions given in the programming part of the course that may further clarify the topic at hand. For inquisitive students, be sure to make available the entire set of course materials to students who are being trained as operators and setup people.