I suppose that if you get a good enough, expensive CAD/CAM package you will never need to know G-code.
I'm making from a few hundred to a few thousand parts so the time spent tweaking the code is worth it for me. For complicated parts, or rather complicated tool paths, use CAM, send the G-code to the machine, but then I'll spend many hours eliminating stuff that's not needed or is wasting cycle time, sometimes this is a 1/2 day process, I've spent a whole day doing this, and by the end my cycle time might be at 1/3 cycle time of what I started with, mind you I'm doing things like eliminating passes, putting operations into optimum order, using 1 tool for as many operations as possible (I love corner chamfer end mills), etc. If I'm making very simple parts, I'll just hand write G-code, usually just modify an existing program. I'm never given a part somebody else has designed where they considered none of these things. I design my parts by figuring out the fixturing and operations, and I design in order to make the machining and fixturing simple and fast. I've gradually transitioned into being a CNC machinist, picking up G code along the way.
#Ncplot student manual#
I'm a mechanical engineer, and started machining in college (30 years ago) on manual Gorton and Bridgeport milling machines. I guess I might have a situation a bit unique, so I'll post here.