A Haas MiniMill like Configuration

Sparky961 wrote: However, being able to intelligently modify g-code that comes from a CAM program is in my opinion an essential skill that many machinists lack. Also, memorizing a subset of the g-code for a particular machine and running certain MDI commands can greatly improve your efficiency and connection with a machine.

Yes, that is exactly what I want to do.

Can you elaborate on what kinds of tweaks you do regularly on a machine that can't be done in CAM? I am still getting my feet wet with CNC (5 years in I am no longer ashamed of my skills, but not a master yet). The only thing I regularly do is change G83 to G73 in order to fix peck milling and tweak the parameters. I can speak Gcode pretty well, but have never had to use work offsets on the tiny machines I have mostly used in the past, so am still getting used to those.

It depends a lot on the code. I'm sure that the most common adjustment is a depth adjustment, which can usually be a very simple find and replace change with most 2.5-D code. If the code is optimized for using tool diameter offsets, minor changes in part size can be made there. But with parametric coding, the effect of minor changes can be very significant, and only limited by your coding skill and imagination.

Thanks for explaining! I really haven't used parametric coding at all - it's quite interesting. Most of the work I do has complex geometry but is still 2.5D, so it would have been very useful in the past to allow for certain things to be more easily adjustable in machine.

FDP wrote: Can you elaborate on what kinds of tweaks you do regularly on a machine that can't be done in CAM?.

There is an example here: bodgesoc.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/cams.html

160 lines of G-code to make a 7-row, 10-position cam.

If I want different rows or positions, or (especially) a different cam pattern, I just need to tweak a couple of parameters at the top, and run the same code again.

This is a _lot_ less trouble than re-modelling the cam in CAD to run the CAM again. And, in this case, the cam pattern is much clearer to see as 0 and 1 in the G-code than in a 3D model.

Awesome! I will check this out!