[ColonelMonk]

Hello:

Our BobCAD rep suggested we post here for solicitation of a programming job.

I'm an engineer at a mfg company in Illinois. We have a Haas CNC mill that we use to drill holes and small pockets in square tubing. We do not have a programmer at this time.

We are looking for a programmer to come in and write programs for a prototype product.

Company is located in North Central Illinois.

We have BobCAD and use Inventor for CAD.

We have about 30 programs that need to be written. We are supposed to begin fabrication 2 weeks from today, so in that two weeks we need both programs written and tubes machined.

If you are interested in this job and are local to Illinois, please send me a PM with phone number to chat about it.

Regards,

CM

[ColonelMonk]

Howdy All,

I'd like to add to the above request. We would need your availability to come to our shop for the trial runs of the programs and needed adjustments.

You can do the programming at home, but you must be available for a few days of in shop time. We would make an exception and this could happen over a weekend if necessary, but if you don't live in the local area we can't do business.

Thanks

[Matt@RFR]

Seems to me that this would be a lot cheaper if you just had a shop make the parts themselves. Think of it like motivation to find a programmer to hire.

[br1]

Seems to me that this would be a lot cheaper if you just had a shop make the parts themselves. Think of it like motivation to find a programmer to hire.

I Agree

[scadvice]

Unfortunately, I'm too far away based on your 'local requirement' or I could help.

Without seeing you print requirements and knowing the model of the Haas, it is difficult to know the scope of the job/s. I have done this sort of project for businesses a number of times, from one or two machines all the way up to and including budgeting and full production multiline turnkey setups.

Here are some points to consider:

1) Anyone doing this for you should have "some" experience doing this sort of thing. Making something like this 'turnkey' is not quite as simple as most people think.

2) Setup and fixturing needs to to be somewhat foolproofed to prevent crashes. So do the programs.

3) "Process Documents" covering any part or part families need to be written and proofed.

4) Job kits should be created along with whatever setup worksheets are needed. Sometimes these can be included with the "Process Documents" but that depends on the company's culture.

5) Quality Control is important even in it's simplest form. i.e. a few go-no-go gages, process sheet, and some basic inspection documentation.

6) Program and revision control.

7) Is this is production work, or 'build when purchased demand?' Each can create their own set of challenges and they need to be addressed.

8) I suspect the the setup and fixturing to be the most important phase of this with programing secondary.

9) Prototyping is generally means program changes.

Good luck in your quest and I hope these comments help you. PM call or e-mail me if you wish. I PM'd some contract information.

[foxsquirrel]

If you are interested in just the programming we run Solidcam 2014 & Solidworks 2015 our machines are Haas so the we can email the posted code. If it only requires "standard tools" and common fixturing in a vise it is no problem and works well via email. I am assuming you have solidmodels of the parts. We take visa/Mastercard no paypal.

[ColonelMonk]

Seems to me that this would be a lot cheaper if you just had a shop make the parts themselves. Think of it like motivation to find a programmer to hire.

Yeah, I hear you, I said prototype but it's actually a "First Article" Build. As soon as the build is proofed, it'll go into production.

CM

[ColonelMonk]

Unfortunately, I'm too far away based on your 'local requirement' or I could help.

Without seeing you print requirements and knowing the model of the Haas, it is difficult to know the scope of the job/s. I have done this sort of project for businesses a number of times, from one or two machines all the way up to and including budgeting and full production multiline turnkey setups.

Here are some points to consider:

1) Anyone doing this for you should have "some" experience doing this sort of thing. Making something like this 'turnkey' is not quite as simple as most people think.

2) Setup and fixturing needs to to be somewhat foolproofed to prevent crashes. So do the programs.

3) "Process Documents" covering any part or part families need to be written and proofed.

4) Job kits should be created along with whatever setup worksheets are needed. Sometimes these can be included with the "Process Documents" but that depends on the company's culture.

5) Quality Control is important even in it's simplest form. i.e. a few go-no-go gages, process sheet, and some basic inspection documentation.

6) Program and revision control.

7) Is this is production work, or 'build when purchased demand?' Each can create their own set of challenges and they need to be addressed.

8) I suspect the the setup and fixturing to be the most important phase of this with programing secondary.

9) Prototyping is generally means program changes.

Good luck in your quest and I hope these comments help you. PM call or e-mail me if you wish. I PM'd some contract information.

Sorry for posting this and then disappearing. It ended up getting political..... We have a draftsman that has done some of the programming but he's not very good at it. I was briefly in contact with someone from the board and then was told to put on the brakes....

We do 95% production with our machine, that's why we don't have a full-time programmer. The Haas operator wants to learn, but there's the politics again, we have to wrestle BobCAD away from the drafter so that he can learn. They ended up getting a local guy to program the tougher parts, and he showed our operator how to do some of the easy ones so he can get started.

We do alot of long square tubing so programming is a little tricky, just because the operator wants to handle the material as little as possible, and our table only has 30" travel so there's alot of sliding and rolling and flipping of the tubes. This is why I couldn't just have people program and send it along, order of ops adjustments would need to be made.

The good news, is that the operator wants to learn, and boss has agreed to send us both for some training, so we can do it ourselves and be able to do some prototyping in house more easily.

Thanks to all for your help and suggestions.

CM