UPDATING AND REPLACING CUTTING TOOLS IN EXISTING JOBS

[enzed]

I use Sheetcam in plasma cutting and will appreciate advice please.

My list of tools for plasma cutting became jumbled up, confusing, and unclear, so I decided to edit them all and re-compile a new list. The numbering of the new list consequently totally different to the original one, which now no longer exists.
The problem which I now have however, is that all the items which were cut using the ‘old’ tools cannot be re-cut because the tool for a particular job no longer exists. My question then is, is there any way of replacing the old tool with the new one, without having to go through the very tedious and time-consuming process of individually re-tooling each job with the new tool? What does the “update operations” function do?

[Les Newell]

Job files include the tool set so when you load a job it should include the tool set it was configured for. You just need to be careful to not accidentally end up overwriting your new tool set with the old one included with a job file.

'Update operations' is used for parameters when the value defined in the tool definition is just a default for the cut operation, for example feed rate. If you change the feed rate in the tool definition it won't affect any operations currently using that tool. If you press the 'Update operations' button any operations currentlyt using that tool will have their feed rate set to the tool's feed rate.

[enzed]

Thank you very muchfor the clarification Les. From what you say, I conclude that there is no way of overwriting the old toolset attached to a particular job, with the new, modified or revised toolset? If so, that then means that I must manually edit and re-allocate a new toolset to a few hundred jobs! A great pity that the old toolset cannot be overwritten via a few quick steps and replaced with the new one.

[Les Newell]

If you go to Options->application options->Advanced and turn on 'Always use default toolset' your default tool set will override the tool set in your job file. When you load an old job file you will probably get a warning that the tool sets differ. Note that you will still need to edit your cut operaions and select the correct tool.

[enzed]

Thank you Les, I was not aware of this possibility. It will make a huge difference in updating jobs with the revised tools! Having to select the correct tool will not be a problem. Thanks again.

[Les Newell]

By the way I'd recommend saving a copy of your tool set (File->save toolset as) just in case you accidentally mess it up at some point.

[enzed]

Very valuable advice, thank you, I'll do so.