Took me 3 years to realize my G-code was full of feed rate errors

Last month I was running a repeat job on a Haas VF-2 and the cycle time was way longer than the first time I ran it. I went back and checked the original program from 2022 and found I had F20 on a finish pass instead of F60. Turns out I've been copying bad feed rates from old programs for years because I never bothered to learn what the numbers actually meant. A senior guy walked by and asked why I was crawling through aluminum. Has anyone else caught dumb mistakes like this in programs you thought were solid?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai_webb911mo ago

Found a program once where every tool change had M1 instead of M6. Machine just sat there for two years while I hit cycle start over and over. Boss was not amused.

logan_mitchell1mo ago

M1 in place of M6, classic. That would've driven me up a wall on day one.

robert6591mo ago

Wait, am I the only one that thinks checking your feeds and speeds is basic machinist stuff? It sounds like you just copied programs without ever looking at the numbers. That's not a g-code problem, that's a you problem. If you don't know what F20 or F60 means in terms of chip load and tooling, you shouldn't be running programs you didn't write yourself. I learned this stuff in my first year by making a point to understand every single line I put in the machine. No senior guy should have to point out you're crawling through aluminum. That's the kind of thing you check before you hit cycle start, not after three years.