WHAT IS CONVERSATIONALPROGRAMMING

For many years, the concept of programming the CNCmachine tool at the controller was thought of as inefficient and tedious. When orders of a small lot size were to be produced, the choice was almost always manual machines. Today, this is not the case, largely because of the advances in conversationalprogramming.

Conversational programming is becoming more widely used throughout the industry and is available as standard on many machine tool controllers. Its major advantage is that it gives the machinist the ability to write programs at the machine quickly and easily. Typically, the process includes a sequence of questions the machinist/programmer must answer, sometimes called “question answer format” or “prompting”. As these questions are answered, the program is constructed. Most controls with this capability also allow the machinist/programmer to graphically check the tool path to verify the program. If the program has flaws or missing information, the controller will not execute the tool path and the programmer must remedy the problem. When program errors do occur, an alarm number will show on the screen indicating what the problem is and where, in the program, it occurred. This is obviously a better method of finding errors than actually cutting a part. Another capability of conversationalprogramming is its feature to perform calculations when programming data are missing from the engineering

drawing. The programmer constructs intersection points or tangency points points, and with this information, the controller computes the desired geometry. On some controllers, Feeds and Speeds can be calculated automatically based on the workpiece material and cutting tool material. The data necessary to do this is stored in the controller memory in the cutting condition parameters.

Conversational “shop floor” programming uses the concept of operator prompting combined with a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Questions throughout the programming process prompt the user for information necessary to complete the part program. Icons accessed through the function buttons on the controller identify machining operations, i.e. Point Machining (shown in Figure 2), Line Machining and Face Machining, etc.

Figure 2 MAZATROL Function Buttons