Technology files are the backbone of your primary operations. They dictate the materials your equipment can cut, and most importantly, the feedrates.
Learn how to:
Navigate to Technology Files
1. First, navigate to the SecturaFab setup and select “Equipment” in the “Production” tab.
2. We recommend navigating to a tech table directly from the desired equipment settings. This way, you know exactly which equipment will be affected. Highlight the desired equipment and then choose “Edit.”
3. From here, you can select a different tech table (1) or upload a new file (2). Select ‘Edit” (3) to open the tech table in SecturaFAB’s browser CSV editor.
Edit Technology Files
1. In SecturaFAB’s browser editor, you can make changes to each column. These columns include:
- Material: Our default laser tables include AL, MS, and SS. If your tenant has additional material groups, you must add them to the tech table to ensure proper calculation.
- Thickness: If a thickness does not match exactly to a line item, the software will default to the lower matching feedrate. For example, if a product comes in with 0.1875 thickness, but the tech table has feedrates mapped to 0.17 and 0.25 inches, the 0.17 feedrate will be used. If in doubt, round down in the tech table to ensure all desired thicknesses will have the correct feedrate.
- Thickness_Units: Set to “inch” or “millimeter.”
- Feedrate: Set a feedrate for each unique material and thickness combination. When area lookups are utilized, there may be multiple feedrates for each material and thickness combination.
- Feedrate_Units: Set to “inch/minute” or “millimeter/minute.”
- PierceTime: Time spent piercing the material.
- PierceTime_Units: Set to “second”
- Kerf: Kerf width
- Kerf_Units: Kerf width units, “inch” or “millimeter”
- Area: Use this column if you wish to utilize area lookups. In this case, each unique material, thickness, and area combination must have a single feedrate. The purpose of this function is to represent laser slow-downs for smaller parts or features.
- Area_Units: Set to “inch2” or “millimeter2.”
- Process: Almost always set to cut. The exception is that there should be one row marked “mark” for each material. This row should have zero Thickness, PierceTime, and Kerf, but a nonzero feedrate. The purpose of the mark row is to represent the very initial mark into a material by a laser. Please refer to our default tech tables for an example.
- Assist_Gas: Please ignore. This will not have any effect on your laser times, but some older tenants might have default tables with this column.
- Preferred: Please ignore. This will not have any effect on your laser times, but some older tenants might have default tables with this column.
2. Select “Back” to save any changes.
Apply Technology Files
1. When you add a line item to a quote, navigate to the ellipses tab in the line-item detail. Here you will find the machine speed and the rapid speed. Additionally, by selecting the hyperlinked CSV file you can redirect to view the technology file again.
Congratulations! You can now edit tech tables in SecturaFAB.