Sunday, September 14, 2008

What is CNC?

Sea & Ski is a sun tan lotion.
Sea to shining sea .... that's America the Beautiful.
Scene C, that's like Scene 3, using the alphabet instead of numbers.
At a machinist school or machine shop, CNC means "Computer Numerical Control".
A lot of manufacturing personnel offices are not really aware of what the company does.
You will see employment ads for "C&C" or "C and C" machinists or programmers.
(I have not yet seen an ad for a "C in C" or "C un-C" machinist.)

CNC - Computer Numerical Control - is very much like an Etch-A-Sketch.
A cutting tool is moved along a tool path using left/right and up/down motions.
Instead of calling the directions left/right and up/down .... CNC programmers call the directions "X" and "Y". The cutter moves from one "x" position to another and from one "y" position to another. A given location will have an address (a pair of coordinates ... X,Y).

A computer memorizes all the x and y points, storing the addresses in a file known as a "CNC
Program."

Most people want to know about CNC because they heard you can make a lot of money in the CNC field. For the most part, the ones who make a lot of money in the CNC field .... well .... they are married to the boss's daughter. The boss's son, he makes about the same as everybody else.

Afterall, machinists (for the most part) don't make money. They make doo-dads, widgets, and thing-a-ma-bobs.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

See Auntsy?