What Year Were You First Exposed To Numerical Control?

[npalen]

Mine would be back in the late sixties when the company I worked for, Master Machine Tools, bought a Burgmaster Econ-o-center with a paper tape reader. I attended a class in Des Plaines IL to learn Gcode and then was off and running punching tapes on a Friden Flexwriter. We would make them into a loop with perforated tape to make multiple parts without having to rewind the tape.

[Bob La Londe]

Probably 2006. I bought a Taig 2019CR-ER. I remember a few years later I got called a liar when I posted somewhere about how many hours I had on it.

[JRouche]

Mine would be back in the late sixties when the company I worked for, Master Machine Tools, bought a Burgmaster Econ-o-center with a paper tape reader.

80s, Navy. Our CNC used a mag tape with a punch card tape for back up. We had to learn how to load the program into the computer using the punch cards for that just in case time when the magnetic tape failed. Fun times watching the reader eatting the card tape up and hoping it didnt break. Then you would have to fix the tape and start over. It took about 30 minutes for the reader to eat the entire string successfully. Made you come to like the mag tape.

I like your story.. JR

[jmm03]

1979, maintaining a robot fed machine line processing aluminum forged semi-truck hubs at the Kaiser Aluminum plant in Oxnard. Somewhat ill fated adaptation of electro-hydraulic PRAB robots feeding a variety of machine tools like NC tape controlled French HES's, Bullard VTL's,cam controlled New Britains etc. the engineer in charge knew everything, all the rest of us were dummkopf's except when it broke down, which was regularly. It was all controlled by a giant centrally located Allen Bradley PLC that had input output module the size of telephone books. The engineer later left and wrote a paper on "how not to automate a machine line" I did a lot of body and fender work when the robots would lose their minds and crash into the machines... learned a lot of different things though.

[BCRider]

Other than seeing them in a few shops over the years I've remained blissfully ignorant of the whole movement.... it's just a passing thing I'm sure....

[Randy]

1998. I'd been an QA inspector for a year and a half, and had shown that I was a fair-to-middllin' machinist, so when the company bought a couple of Fadal 3016s I was given the opportunity to learn CNC. I had no CAD or even computer experience, so I was quickly in over my head at an accelerated Mastercam school, and my first hands-on with the machine was our vendor from whom we were taking back our first job training me to set up the machine. I was overwhelmed. But I caught on quickly, took a G-code programming class from the machinery dealer, then a proper Mastercam course at the local community college. Wound up with a twenty year career, first running and setting up machines, then programming. Enough to retire with a pension and a healthy 401k, and I'm living the life of Riley now. It turned out well for this old bicycle mechanic. I wondered how I could get along without a CNC machine, but I haven't really missed it. But I can imagine getting a little Tormach someday.

[nc5a]

It was 1976 in Lacrosse Wisconsin. I was attending Western Wisconsin Technical College enrolled in the Electrical Power Program. The program had several computer courses so the class would go to the room that housed the main frame core memory. That was quite the sight, I'm sure some of you guys remember and have probably seen a room full core memory cabinets. Anyway, along with the core memory side trips we spent some time in the machine shop studying and trying our hand at punch tape numerical control. I never got the hang of it, nor could I program my out of a paper bag with any of the other programming languages. Thanks for the trip back to 1976.

[Lew Hartswick]

Early to mid 50s I was shown a punched paper tape reader being used on some machine being built in central PA . At the time I was impressed. :-) I suppose it may have been taken from a teletype machine. :-)
...lew...

[RSG]

Other than seeing them in a few shops over the years I've remained blissfully ignorant of the whole movement.... it's just a passing thing I'm sure....

LOL....same here!

The stuff I make would be deemed less valuable by collectors if I ever did!

[npalen]

Early to mid 50s I was shown a punched paper tape reader being used on some machine being built in central PA . At the time I was impressed. :-) I suppose it may have been taken from a teletype machine. :-)
...lew...

Interesting! I wonder if the Friden Flexowriter, which was basically an electric typewriter with a tape punching unit mounted on the side, was an adaptation of teletype machines?

[rklopp]

1977 - watched a Pratt & Whitney paper-tape-driven machine drive a felt-tipped marker around on paper during an open house at Packard Lab at Lehigh U.
1990s - minor exposure to a Fadal at work.
2006 - bought a 1986 Deckel FP2NC with Dialog 4 control. Taught myself CNC, learned a ton, used it a lot, made repairs, and sold it last fall.
2017 - taught myself Haas CNC on the local high school's TM-1, mentoring in the robotics program.
2023 - bought a DN Solutions VMC and am learning a Fanuc Oi-MF Plus control. I am glad to have the prior experience, because this machine is not for beginners. The user interface is a jumble and rapids are scary fast (though there are plenty of machines out there that have at least half again as fast rapids).

[Doozer]

I wrote my first CNC program on a Moog Hydro-Point machine back in the 1990s.
Hydraulic movement with servo valve control. (Bill Moog invented the hydraulic
servo valve). I ended up working at Moog for a while and at a different company
where I built servo valves.


-Doozer

[skunkworks]

late 80's when my dad drug a K&T Milwaukee Matic IIIb..

SO - i t was from the 60's, The control consisted of transistors - no integrated circuits. we got it working. ran punch tape for about a month and decided to build a tape emulator.

I guess it was sort of 'retro - nc'ing'

sam

[Noitoen]

In 1980 dad's company was called to repair a big generator that was used to power the Fanuc stall at a trade show in Johannesburg, South Africa. They already used a robot arm to load blanks to turn and also place on a system to measure if any correction needed to be made to the tool.

[boslab]

79 and just after, making ribs for Concorde on a NC gantry mill, the bits were machined out of homogenised slabs about 30’ x 3’ x10” , there were many rejects!, no amount of care could get these machines to work 100% of the time, scrap was inevitable
plus getting punching of the tape in your eyes was common!. It required a visit to er to peel the little bits off as they seemed to weld on your eyeball
mark