possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

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David_Lelen01
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possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Hey Les,

Here's a thought for the next update... would it be possible to specify a toolset and path rules to load when a machine is loaded? With custom tool parameters defined for multiple different machines and posts, sheetcam only loads the custom parameters from whatever the post is when the program is opened. If i change to another machine, the custom tool parameters are not there unless i reload the default tool set.

I was thinking of creating a separate tool library for each machine so there are not so many in a drop down list and it would be nice if it automatically loads when i load the machine. As well as the path rules loading with the machine too.

And while i'm thinking about it maybe add a toolbar button to change machines?

Just food for thought.
David_Lelen01
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Hey Les,

Just wanted to revisit this one too... would it be possible to do without too much trouble?
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Going back to this one again Les... You have toolbar buttons to run a different post than the default for a machine... would it be possible to add buttons to load specific machines? And have that button act as a macro and load a specified toolset with the specified machine? I frequently switch between three machines and it would just make the process so much more streamlined. Food for thought?
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Les Newell
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by Les Newell »

It shouldn't be too hard to add a simple plugin to do this. I should be able to base it on the moreposts plugin.
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Les Newell
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by Les Newell »

Just a thought - would you be better off using multiple profiles for your different setups? viewtopic.php?t=6654&sid=18a46e9185fd7c ... ddc5688365
David_Lelen01
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Yeah.... thats a pretty neat feature. I didnt know you could do that. I suppose that would work better. Just keep everything for the three machines completely separated and open whichever shortcut i need. Then no more oopsie-daisies of having a waterjet rule active on the laser. I'll give that a try. Thanks Les!
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Les, I set up the different profiles like the post you attached a link to. Now the tools are not displaying the names defined in the tool table again. It is just the generic "Plasma Tool, 0.065in kerf".
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Les Newell
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by Les Newell »

It shouldn't have done that. Edit a tool and turn off 'automatically generate name'. Are you using a recent update of SheetCam? The last couple of releases no longer have that option and should not mangle your custom tool names.
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Yes, using version 6.1.70. It will let me edit the tool name from the SheetCAM tool table. I can then save the default toolset and repopen the program and it loads the name correctly. Looking at the text file, there is no difference between the one saved by sheetcam and the one created from my tools spreadsheet. One thing i did notice though, it is not loading the comments for each tool either, but that doesnt really matter at this point.

Attached is my tool table i am trying to load. Maybe you can see something that i cannot.
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Les Newell
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by Les Newell »

Is this tools file created by your spreadsheet? the tool name line looks wrong:
"Name=Laser STEEL 20ga"""
Should be:
Name=Laser STEEL 20ga

By the way, if you are using a spreadsheet you may want to take a look at File->import/export toolset. This lets you process tool files as CSV files which are much more spreadsheet friendly.
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Yes, the tools file was created from my spreadsheet. I developed the spreadsheet before you had added the Import/Export CSV support. I just wrote an excel macro to write the spreadsheet data in the format of the .tools file.

It has worked perfectly fine with all releases until I made three separate profiles for our three separate machines. For some reason, now it will not load the tool name if the name has a quotation mark ("), which i used to denote inches, anywhere in the name. I took those out and all seems to be working fine now.
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Les Newell
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by Les Newell »

I'm pretty sure a quotation mark needs to be escaped - e.g \" instead of "
Create a tool in SheetCam and give it a name with a quotation mark. Save the tools file and take a look at it to check.
By the way the next release will have a tool generator that can take a spreadsheet of parameters and generate a tool based on the values in the spreadsheet. It can interpolate between lines so for instance if your spreadsheet has the settings for 6mm and 8mm but you want the settings for 7mm it will use values half way between the two.
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by David_Lelen01 »

Thats awesome! that would be a godsend for our Waterjet because it skips all of our most common cut sizes and ive been trying to fill them in manually.
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Les Newell
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Re: possible to load specified tool table with load machine?

Post by Les Newell »

The latest version has the tool creation plugin. It's still a work in progress but the basics are there. You can find it in plugins->plasma tool. Currently it only has data from Hypertherm 45XP plasma but the data is just stored in CSV files. Select one of the 45XP FineCut profiles, right click on it and copy it to the settings folder. If you go to Help->open settings folder you should find a PlasmaTool directory that holds the copied data. You can add custom columns to the CSV file. If the column names match any custom tool parameters they will be added to the generated tool. If not, they will just be displayed. Note the 'units' column is used to define if that line is metric or inch. If a cell contains the word 'inch', all linear units on that line are in inches. If not the units are metric. You can mix units in a file, as demonstrated by the FineCut example.

I just realized you'll be creating waterjet and laser tools. Currently the plugin only does plasma tools.
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