Finding out how many sheets have been cut

[Thom Davies]

Hey hows it going?

Just wondering if there is anyway the thermwood or a program that can track how many sheets have been cut in a day.

As we a very busy with 3 very big jobs and want to be able to track how many sheets have been cut with out the guy who runs the thermwood saying " yeah i cut about 40 to 50 sheets today" when if fact he might of cut just 25! lol

Thanks in advance

Thom Davies

[Neville Bastian]

Hi Thom,
Yes I think that would be a simple but good feature. Maybe that could be in a history file management can look at from time to time.

The other report that would be of interest to me is how many meters/feet a cutter does each day and each time tool length is done. If was a way to have a question pop up if that option is turned on "is this a new tool" I then could get a report that said tool used for X hrs, done X meters and has been length tested X times. Also averaged X meters per minute. It would then be easy to compare different manufacturers tooling. You could also mess around with different speeds to see the life go down or improve.

Regards

Neville

[Will Williamson]

Now that is the best idea I have heard in a long time.

[Ryan Hochgesang]

At this time the only available options from the factory on a Thermwood control are as follows:

The Life Left field in Tool Management will display Tool Expired once the hrly. value has counted down to zero, then pickup a substitute tool if in fact one is setup. Life left counts down when the spindle is ON for active tool.

Regarding sheet or time tracking, the Thermwood control offers the START and END sub program calls which monitor the control Time/Date and prompts operater with dialogue showing the actual cycle time between the Start and End timer sub calls.

In any case, there is the possibility to create custom programming for the Thermwood control by utilizing AFL (Advanced Function Language) to retrieve and utilize varios information from the computer system when running a part program. The last section of most Thermwood machine programming manuals is dedicated to AFL to help machine owners if they would like to create some sort of custom programming. The other option is to contact Thermwood software support/custom programming services (email: program@thermwood.com) and have custom programs generated for your individual needs.

[Neville Bastian]

Thanks Ryan,
Its good you have that ability. Is my and Thom's requirement possible with the software now?
If we had a group of Thermwood users that gave you a brief could we then share the cost amongst a few users?
Regards

Neville

[Will Williamson]

I,m in. Could we get a quote on this?

[Thom Davies]

Im very much in, can we get a price please!

Cheers

Thom Davies

[Ryan Hochgesang]

I will review the options for posting Sheet Count information based on a start and end sub program being called in your actual part program and then get back to you with details on this.

In regards to the ability to track tool linear cut amt., this is something that will be limited to what the control currently offers with the Life Left field in tool management. However, I will put in a customer request to our software engineering group for possible consideration of implementation in the future.

[Thom Davies]

Hey Guys

Just wondering if you have come up with a price yet for the program?

Cheers

Thom Davies

[Ryan Hochgesang]

This situation has become difficult due to the fact pricing is involved with multiple people looking for same feature. Typically there is a difference in what is being requested and then quoting is done per individual case. Due to the nature of this posting, I will have to put in a request to engineering to create some sort of standardized option that would allow operator to modify a particular setting that would supress the timer dialogue that appears when using the current sub timer programs to monitor cut time. If the setting is ON, then the information regarding Time and Sheet count would be automatically written to text file somewhere on control and could then be viewed by supervisors or management at their convenience.

[Neville Bastian]

Ryan seeing so many people think this report data is worth while it could be a new feature? I don't mind paying something towards this feature so I am not trying to get something for nothing. I think generally most users of the Thermwood would like to get this report on number of sheets cut per day, the number of meters each tool does and maybe the number of hours, the number of times the tool is tool length sensed.

I'm not sure if others have found this but occasional the operator runs the same program twice because he hadn't crossed it off or its the next day or he has a real bad hangover. If you saw in the number of sheets run the program number the operator could quickly check where they got to. This may be a Australian thing but a simple report could solve this.
Hopefully engineering can work a simple solution and maybe do a few extra stats we can use.

Regards
Neville

[FredHirsch]

Neville,
At one time I had the timer writing the file name and execution time to simple text log file using AFL. As I recall it was really simple. However, it did not give a sheet count and was just thinking about this feature today as guys were moving stacks of wood around. It would be really nice to know what the night shift accomplished without having to open the cnc files and visually trying to figure out what sheets/parts/quantities were cut.
Fred

[Neville Bastian]

Hi Fred,
I had thought of the answer before but didn't want to suggest this but couldn't we get the report emailed to selected office staff members. A simple copy of last weeks Thermwood activity file forwarded to a few email addresses that could be dissected with data required with a spreadsheet?
This could be a powerful management tool highlighting problem area's.

Regards

Neville

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Man where have you guys been??? Sleeping since 2007??
Check out this post I did back then about having a job report generator so we could see what jobs/files were cut that day/week/month or how many sheets or hours did it take to complete a job.

http://www.thermwood.com/forums/viewtop ... ort#p40105

Two other CNC manufacturers, that I know of, offer this included with there controller. So I say if they can do it Thermwood can do it better.

[Neville Bastian]

Michael did you have to wake me up. Must be too much sunlight in Texas.
Looks like they didn't like your suggestion Michael because 3 years on there is no sign from Thermwood its going on any list.
So the question is would you be willing to pay for this enhancement?
So far no offical reply if we can jointly pay for this upgrade. It may be a little more to it than we think.

Michael your closer to Thermwood than I am. Can't you drop in and plead the case.
Regards

Neville