Unpopular opinion: G-code comments are not optional if you share machines

I work at a small shop in Austin where three of us rotate on the same Haas VF-2. Last month I loaded what I thought was a finishing pass for a bracket and it plunged into my fixture because the previous guy had moved the WCS offset but didn't leave any note in the program. Spent 45 minutes re-cutting that part from scratch. I get that we're all busy and writing comments feels like extra work, but when you skip them you're just setting up the next person to crash or scrap something expensive. I started adding a line at the top of every program that says which operation it's for and what stock setup it needs. Simple stuff like "face pass, 1.5in 6061" or "bore cycle, part in vise at Z-2.0." It takes maybe 10 seconds per program and nobody has crashed on my work since. Does your shop have any rules about what goes in headers or are you all just going by word of mouth?

2 comments

2 Comments

joseph4551mo ago

Face pass, 1.5in 6061" - man I'd kill for that, I just write "please dont crash lol" at the top of mine and hope for the best.

caleb_gibson1mo ago

@joseph455 beat me to the real solution here. But joking aside, the "please dont crash lol" comment is actually better than nothing. It at least makes someone pause and look twice. Your header idea is solid. We use a template on our machines that forces a few lines, like material, op number, and whether the part is already roughed. The key is making it stupid simple. One guy here wrote "finish this, not that" once and it saved my butt. Word of mouth dies the second someone gets sick or quits.