I'm a beginner to the cmm and have been learning on my own by googling around for info. Do you guys have any recommendations for free videos or tutorials? My work pinches pennies and doesn't pay for anyone to get trained. And now we have another machinist learning to operate it as well. Thanks
My advice to you is to tell your bosses that they wouldn't expect an engineer or an electrician to come in and do anything without any proper training so they shouldn't expect someone to sit down on an engineering-degree level machine and do anything worth while. either OJT with an experienced programmer or legitimate training from Hexagon or a similar party.
The learning curve is steep and the possible mistakes are ENDLESS. There are thousands of ways to measure things.... but only a few ways to do it correctly. Get training.
CMMXYZ has very good PC DMIS video's but they are no substitute for proper training. You'll likely need GD&T training as well. Don't have the website in front of me but a professor by the name of Odell has a good series on GD&T. Not a proper substitute for a real class but if that's all that can be done....
At the company I work for, which is a family business on the 3rd generation owners, the owners don't care about the business and are just going to milk it for its last drops. Basically invest the bare minimum and let it fizzle out. But luckily for me its an opportunity to mess around with equipment like this cmm and learn whatever I can.
Keep a organized electronic word doc (any brand) with procedures, tips, tricks, how to's, etc... on things that might come in handy one day. Even if you don't get to use that trick you saw on the forum for a couple of months.
I keep a google doc that I constantly update with things I've learned on the forum. An example would be how to combine 2 auto circles into 1 constructed circle. I open my doc, type line 1 in bold. "how to combine 2 auto circles into 1 constructed circle". Then I copy the code from pcdmis that I've tested and works and paste it into my doc and I might add notes about that 1 entry.
Next time I see something that I like, I'll open my doc, insert page break and add another entry such as creating a .csv file for measurement data, printing to my network, entries on the math algorithms, true position formula, small arc method, etc.. Anything that might be useful now or in the future.
So when I need to look something up, I just click control f and find what I'm looking for.
One of the hardest things is knowing "what" to learn. Without the training it is very easy to overlook crucial elements of CMM programming. My second bit of advice is to use the courses here on this site. If you go to Course catalog / elearning courses/ CMM / Level 2. There is a "are you ready for PC-Dmis for CMM 201" that covers most things you should know by the end of the 101 course. I would recommend taking that free self evaluation and then using it as a guide to help you direct your learning. That will help you build a framework of things to learn first so you dont waste your time with other things and you are less likely to miss some of the basic elements of programming.
