Kid fresh out of trade school made me rethink my whole approach

Was showing a 19 year old how to set up a 5 axis machine last Tuesday. He asked why I always run the same feeds and speeds I learned 20 years ago. I told him because it works. Then he pulled up a simulation on his phone showing a faster cycle time with different tool paths. Ran his way and shaved 4 minutes off a 12 minute part. Been doing this since 2003 and a kid with a YouTube education just schooled me. Anyone else have moments where the younger guys show you something useful?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlesowens22d ago

Did the kid show you how he figured that out or did he just pull a canned program from somewhere? I'm curious if he actually understood the tool deflection and chatter tradeoffs or if he just got lucky with a faster path that happened to work. Seen plenty of younger guys chase cycle time and end up with broken endmills or scrap parts because they didn't account for real world variables the simulation missed. What material were you running? That makes a big difference in whether his approach holds up over a production run.

paul_morgan22d ago

Nodded along with @charlesowens until I realized I've snapped more endmills than I'd care to admit.