Jeff,
The problem is, I was too trusting. When we discussed doing the Machine through my company, my hourly rate was too much for him. So, he made a counter offer to me. He told me that he would hire me on as a "Contract Employee" for 3 months to "Proove I could do it". He told me that if I got that control going, that he would hire me full time to be his control guy, cause he wanted to manufacture his very own Granite Mill, and his own line of CNC Granite Polishers, CNC Granite Saws, CNC Bowl Machines, etc. He said, if I could proove I could do what I said, (the Granite Mill Retrofit control being the test case), I would have a full time job, designing Mach3 OEM custom machines!!! Now for me that is a "Dream Job", I am self Employed, and have been that way for a while now, Unfortunatly, the Paying Mach3 Machine build, control, screen or retrofit work is far between, I mostly stay afloat by doing CNC machine Repair (any type, specilizing in the Peddinghaus brand), the price I pay for that, is alot of travel. Even though I like working for my self, the Other hats you have to wear is overwelming sometimes. So, to me, a full time job being paid a little less, BUT, not having to worry about Marketing, taxes, bookeeping, and all the other hassels that go along with being a One Man band was worth it to me, PLUS only infrequent travel.
I was Very Excited about having a Mach3 controls engineer job!!! Matter of fact I loved it!! The guy KNEW he had me, He got me for MUCH less than I would have made if I would have contracted it through my company. It damm near Broke my heart when he laid me off AFTER I completed the control, and showed it working. I thought when he came to my office that he was gonna congradulate me and welcome me full time to the team. Boy was I shocked. Then to find out from my friend that I made there (who will remain unnamed), that His Plan from the beginning was to get a Working control and basically copy it and hang it on his other machines that he would build. He had looked at other control solutions: Fanuc, Siemens, Yaskawa and all of them where WWWAAAAAYYYY more than he wanted to spend on JUST the control. I showed him, and sold him on the Fact that I could and DID, the same thing with Mach3. I did sell him on this control, the thing is alot of my control work, was left uncompleted and was to be completed on the machine. The main one being the ATC itself, they decided to "Rebuild/Remanufacture" the spindle (The OMAG is an 1995 Italian machine), the old control was a "NUM", I had called the Italians to try and get the M6 routine from them, they didnt have one, they said, Num had it, so I called NUM, and they said that they no longer have records of the programming on a control that is that old. Bottom line is, I had to pull out the Mechanical CADs, and look at the Physical Spindle, and Prox locations to get an Idea of how it cycled. I then made a best guess sequence of events with current I/O on the spindle to build the M6. I Knew then that even though I would be close, I would have to tweek it on the machine. Further, the Debugging has NOT been done as far as on the machine functioning, NOR has any axis tuning been done.
They guy who replaced me, I suspect will soon join this board and start asking for help from the Users on getting the rest of the project completed, and/or he will trow up his hands and have them call me in again to fix the above. I don't blame the guy really, he wants to do it himself to prove his worth to that company, and keep his job. My having to be called in to fix the problems is a " Threat" to his job security. Honestly, If our roles where reversed I would feel the same way that he does. The last thing you want at a new job is some outside "Expert" to come in and "Show you up".
YOUR ADVICE: I will take it to heart and make it my own. The Owner mentioned to me, that he "May" want me to design a CNC Granite Polisher for him (Obviously the Wizards, and Controls), and they will do the physical machine. If that turns out to be True, perhaps I could pick your Brain on how to write the kind of Contract you discussed above, If I could send you the details?
In my book, you only have your Word, Character and Integrity, I expect others that I do biziness with to be like me Especially Owners. I guess those qualities are NOT part of the Biziness world anymore. Thus when I see those failures, I am ultimatly disappointed and pay the price for Trust.
Play it Forward: I am not patting my self on the back or anything, but I try to help answer questions by people on this board. Often I will just "Do the Solution" for them. I know that many of them are Biznesses and they will make money off my Ideas or work. But, I go into that knowing thats the case. I do it because in the beginning I needed alot of help, (still do here and there), and some of my issues where so I could finish this machine or that to sell it and make money. I know that Upfront, what bothers me is, those that LIE to you and have already planned to screw you over at the beginning, and purposly take advantage of your kindness.
Jason "Zeolous" Blake, the Main Flash Guru on this board, and whom I consider a good friend, we work on things together alot, he has also done alot of custom Flash screens, or work for people who promissed to pay him, and they got the screens and then "Forgot" his name........... Jason has put HUGHE amounts of FREE programming labor into the Flash Screen stuff for our (the Mach community's) benifit. Yet, he only has a small trickle of income. The reason his Flash IDE is so late in being posted is, he is barely staying afloat himself. There are some OEMs that have left him high and dry as well. He, like me doesnt have the Time, Energy, or more importanly the money to go out a hire a Lawyer to fight for your rights against some OEM that comparied to you, might as well be Bill Gates.
***getting off, long winded soap box now****
Scott