2 Replies Latest reply on Jan 11, 2019 10:54 AM by Angelle Erickson

Multi Unit Tool Cribs

Shawn Lammers Nov 21, 2018 6:41 PM

I am new to Solidworks CAM. I have been using Delcam For Solidworks. Since Delcam is now discontinued I am starting to explore Solidworks CAM.

I am not sure the proper way to handle tool cribs. Most of my tools are in inch units but all my tapping and drilling is done in metric.

What is the best approach, should I create two separate cribs, one for metric and the other for inch? It seems if I do this I would have to create multiple part files and do the inch work in one file and metric work in another. Or can you have multiple cribs at the same time, maybe with with multiple configurations in the same SLDPRT file?

Or should I put all my metric tools in the inch crib and just convert all the dimensions to inch. This is kind of cumbersome and I would like to avoid this.

Re: Multi Unit Tool Cribs

Michael Buchli Nov 21, 2018 10:11 PM (in response to Shawn Lammers)

Shawn,

Drills and taps can be a mix of metric and inch. If you add a drill or tap to your toolcrib you should see the metric and inch together. below is an example from the stock databases.

Drills
Taps

You do have the ability with SW CAM Professional to create configurations in CAM the same way as you create SW CAD configurations. This would allow you to setup multiple ops for mill or turn or run a part using different toolcribs. The configs are very versatile like in SW.

Mike
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Re: Multi Unit Tool Cribs

Angelle Erickson Jan 11, 2019 10:54 AM (in response to Shawn Lammers)

Here is a SOLIDWORKS CAM Tutorial blog that discusses Tools and Tool cribs. I hope it can help. SOLIDWORKS CAM Tutorial: Customizing Tools and Tool Cribs
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