Customized Parts

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Tex_Lawrence
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Customized Parts

Post by Tex_Lawrence »

This question is more about file organization than routing.

In your opinion and based on your experience, please comment on a method to organize the production of a customized part.

I'm designing a part that has two faces. Let's call them front and back. These are items that will be produced regularly and in some quantity; not one-offs.

The back face will be carved with a common design. All parts will have this same design. Toolpaths for the back will be identical between parts.

The front face will be customized for the purchaser in some way. I can imagine that changes might start from a blank design, but most of the design changes will be text changes. I was thinking that toolpaths would be the same all the time, but I would have to limit the part to a number of designs. (I may be heading to a limited number of designs depending on your comments.)

There might be 100's of these customized designs. Or even 1000's.

I will be keeping inventory of the part that is complete to the point of customizing the front face.

So, in terms of quantity produced, at what point should I choose to keep the customized designs within layers in a single file or to opt for a single file per customization of the front face?

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mezalick
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Re: Customized Parts

Post by mezalick »

Tex,
In my opinion it would depend on how well you can remember which file you would want.
I have done similar cuttings and I have used both approaches.
In the end, having separate files with well described titles worked for me...
I have also included a snapshot of the file to help remember what is what.

Michael
Michael Mezalick
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kilrabit
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Re: Customized Parts

Post by kilrabit »

When you use a lot of layers, you can accidentally be on the wrong layer and make a change and lose some data or make a change yo do not want.
I would make a folder for these, then make the changeable side, save it, change the file to read only in properties, make a shortcut to the desktop for
that file. When making the face side just open your desktop file for the face. When making the new face you cannot save the file, you have to "save as", then rename the file to reference the change.
This makes it easier for me when I have a lot of files with changes which are similar.

Roy

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Adrian
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Re: Customized Parts

Post by Adrian »

I'd do it as a single file with layers. Lock the layers that don't change and only leave the layer with the parts that would be modified unlocked.

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Tex_Lawrence
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Re: Customized Parts

Post by Tex_Lawrence »

Thanks for your comments. They are valuable to me.

It seems, so far, that this is more of a personal preference about organization in general. Do you think so?

I was originally thinking that there might be something in the software or router computer that weighted one method more than the other.

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