Tool Database

[Leo Voisine]

Lately, I have been organizing all my cutters for my CNC machine.

Vectric has a pretty nice database whereas you can have all your cutters set up for different materials. Softwood, hardwood, HDU, MDF, plastics, brass, steels etc etc

I have 75 different cutters for my CNC machine that I have collected over the years.

At this time I have seperated them into a draw cabinet and labeled all the little drawers.
I created an Excel spreadsheet with description, source, brand, part number, style, flutes, RH or LH cutting. I am adding Speed, feed, chipload. There is more info but I don't think anyone really cares. If you do I will update.

Now - I am adding everything into the Vectric database.

This is REALLY time consuming and enormously tiring on my head. I can input about 10 entries, then I need a break.

I am backing up the database each time I make entries.

Whhooooeeeee - I need a break now.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

I feel you.

A few years back we put some 2000 of our books into https://www.librarything.com/ (well actually we put several hundred into like 3 different systems to test before settling on that). Most were simple scans, but I have maybe 200-300 books that are old/rare enough to required manually entering the details and I took cover pictures, etc.. for them as well.. That took most of a week hah.

That was arguably easier because the data was relatively well formatted and *usually* available in a relatively easy to deal with format.. I'm guessing you're having to do a lot of "check the angle.. lookup a ton of specs" on these.

I would definitely be interested knowing what the set of specs you are interested in storing is.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Don't even get me started on entering all of my record collection in a database. Someday, I'll work on it, but oof.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

I need to do something similar with guns, guitars, and other music gear.

 

[Leo Voisine]

I would definitely be interested knowing what the set of specs you are interested in storing is.

Ryan,

There is a bit to the reason.

I am an engineer and quite anal about this stuff. It's kinda like a disease - almost - obsession - almost.

First, I had a lot of cutters in boxes and containers and didn't know what I had. So I bought cutters that I had already and some of them are rather expensive.

Second, when I am sitting in my nice comfy office chair and programming a job, I want easy access to my selection of cutters. Lazy, I know, but I don't want to go "looking" for something like that.

Third, I want this to be all set up to use directly into my program.

In Vectric Aspire, which is what I use to program my CNC machine, there is a tool database. That database is where I can "grap" a tool and use it when I am creating a program. Being a graphical interface, I can "see" if a tool will fit into the spaces in the object I am programming. Additionally, the RPM and Feedrate along with a few other characteristics are set up for each individual cutter. Beyond that, for any one cutter (tool) different materials require different settings. When drilling steel - one cannot push the drill as fast as one could into Pine, therefore, a different feedrate and RPM is needed. This is true of every cutter in the datebase. That can be accommodated in the Vectric quite well.

In the database I have form tools. These tools (cutters) are of specific shapes. Ogee router bits, door panel bits, Rail and Stile bits, Roundover bits. The shape need to be created for each individual cutter and created in the database.

I also use 3 different computers. I have my office, my laptop and my shop computer. Fortunately, the Vectric database can be save to a central location in my home network. I can upload, save, download from each computer. Without that - each computer has differing databases with differing settings. It gets to be a problem at times.

By doing this, I have everything in ONE database and in ONE central location accessible from all computers. I can finally get everything all on ONE page.