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A random trip to Detroit flipped my view on CNC dry runs
I always figured CNC work was all about the code... set it and forget it. But last month, I tagged along with a friend to his uncle's shop in Detroit. Place was nothing fancy, just a garage with a couple of mills. The guy running it had this habit of doing a manual dry run on every new program... watching the tool path without the spindle on. I thought it was a waste of time. Then he showed me how he caught a possible crash that would have ruined a $500 part. Now I do the same thing back at my shop... and I've saved a few jobs from going bad. Kind of funny how a random trip can change how you work.
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samschmidt7mo ago
Our shop got Fusion 360 sim last spring. Totally caught a feed rate error that would have wrecked a tool and vise. The visual preview makes it so much faster than manual checks. I sim everything now, saves so much time and stress.
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christopher3867mo ago
Wait really? I just use good simulation software these days. It seems way more efficient than a manual walk through. Why not just use the better tools we have now?
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mitchell.wade7mo ago
Simulation can make you lazy. You start trusting the software so much you skip basic checks. I've seen guys crash machines because they didn't notice a simple typo in the tool offset that the sim didn't flag. The software shows a pretty picture, but it can't feel a loose clamp or hear a bad bearing. Relying on it completely takes your eyes and ears out of the process.
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