About the Material Dialog

The Material dialog allows you to enter the information for a new material, or edit the information in an existing material.

Open the dialog using the 'Materials' buttons (Create, Edit etc) in the Technology Assistant window (for example).

Most of the items in the dialog are for your own reference purposes. Some can also be used for filtering.

Here are some additional notes where necessary:
 

General tab
 

Visible in List

Can be filtered using the 'Show in list' filter option.

Family

The Families correspond to the tabs of the Materials list in the Technology Assistant window. Select an existing family from the list or type in a new family name. Typing in a new name creates the family. (Deleting the last Material in a family deletes the family).

Specification

Use the button to link to a document, or the button to open an already-linked document. The documents can be in plain text (.txt) or Word (.doc) format, for example. The document remains outside the database, so should be kept in the same relative path to the database file.

If no path is specified, it defaults to the path of the ToolStore database (.mdb) file (for example 'installation folder\Cam\Tstore').

The tstore.mdb example database has Specification links in the 'Aluminium – unalloyed' and 'Brass long chip' material entries.

 

Notes tab
 

Subject

This  text appears in the Notes column of the Material list in the Technology Assistant window.

Notes File

This behaves identically to 'Specification' above.

 

Hardness tab

Type values using any of the scales and the equivalent values in the other scales are automatically inserted.
 

Standards tab

These settings are only for reference.
 

Technology tab

To  use this tab:

  1. Make a selection from the Insert list.

  2. Complete the settings which are for the combination of the Material being edited and the selected insert.

    If 'Category' for the insert (Insert dialog General tab) is set to 'Solid Tool', you can complete 'Depth of Cut' values for a specific 'Diameter Range' values. Use the buttons to step between ranges to edit them, or to step to a blank set of values to fill in. These values are automatically used in EdgeCAM.

    The General and Finish (Speed/Feed/Plunge) settings are only available according to the Type setting for the insert (Insert dialog General tab).