What a Day!!!

Indeed, what a day!!! I'm so glad to finally be home!!! I got to work today and started in on machining a head for a sealing machine. I wrote a program for it yesterday, but it was too big to fit in my CNC's meager memory. I tried to DNC (I think that stands for direct numerical control) feed it the program, but it wasn't working right. First attempt I've made to do that. Well, this morning I wrote two new programs for it, only cutting half at a time. They came out small enough to work, around 1,300 lines each, which isn't really that big of a program. By way of contrast, this very page probably takes up more kilobytes than the simple text program I'd written. Cut the first half, and it came out smashingly!!! I was pleased. Then, with the help of the other (guess you'd call him the senior) CNC programmer-operator, tried DNC'ing the second half. Didn't work. I loaded it in the memory and started cutting it, and it came out good, too. Oh yea, it still does the
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
thing if you don't shut down and re-start the machine in between. Wrote two more programs to do final clean-up cuts on both cavities with smaller cutters. Other CNC guy remembers something else on DNC'ing and we tried that, once again it doesn't work. I cut the first one normal, then try to do the second one. The tool changer goes to change to the appropriate cutter, and it sticks in the changing position!!! Keyboard and everything freezes up. I re-start it again, and now my video screen doesn't come on right, its all blasted with pixels. Shut down and pull the video cards and re-seat 'em, and it works, tool changer retracts, all seems well.
Except
It thinks that it has tool 1 in the spindle, when I can clearly see it's got tool 2 in there!!! I pop tool 2 out, and give it the command to change to tool 2, and the changer crashes the spindle into the side of tool 1 that's really still hanging in the changer!!! GRRRRRR!!! Eventually I got it straightened out, after I took a break and ate some lunch, and let everything cool down. Cut the final cut and was happy once more. Flipped the plate over to cut a little groove in the back, the final finishing touch, and once again the video won't work right!!! Messed with it for a while, then left it cooling once more and came back around an hour later. Still didn't work. Fuck it, that's enough for the day.

Left just a bit after 7, and I swear traffic was worse tonight than last night when I left at 5:30!!! Bunch of assholes out on the road, of course, too. Had 2, almost 3 cars change lanes as if I wasn't even there!!! Maybe a white car is just too invisible. I'll keep you posted.

Got another hit on Where's George when I checked my E-mail. Always cool when that happens. This one was from Nacogdoches, Texas, one year and 79 days after I'd entered it. That makes 347 total hits!!! Lucky number 347!!!