For those of you using CW4SE the SP1 update is finally out today and available in the customer downloads section of CAMWorks website. MP 4 for SE was released earlier this month and it had the fix needed to get assemblies up and running inside CW4SE so we are in the final days of the wait for assemblies capabilities in CW4SE. I expect within a couple of weeks this last remaining hurdle of integration will be jumped for those of you waiting for this. Busy downloading the update now and if any glitches show up I will comment. Otherwise assume all is well.
In another note. I have decided that the correct way to begin using the Tech Data Base is to go into it and into the mill tools section for instance and do the following. I use three flute and five flute tools almost exclusively and four fluters for ball end mills. There are many MANY hundreds of silly tools in there and all come checked for use and so you are doomed to things you never use showing up all the time automatically when you generate your operation plan. Look at the following silly stuff Geometric leaves in there for instance.
The second column is labeled “ON”. Just start from the top and keep going and uncheck pretty much everything. I saved a few ball mills and insert cutters but nothing else since this shop never uses all this junk. Add your own tools of preference at this time. I think out of perhaps a couple thousand tools some programmer dude who never cut parts put in there I saved maybe 25 or so. But now at least the TDB is going to start looking more closely at tools I intend to use. This is not the complete answer here but it is a start to fixing this bad tool library mess Geometric ships. While you are in there you might as well change the degree of angle for all the drill bits to. I use nothing but 135 degree split points and sadly the Geometric drill data base is exclusively 118 degree. So go through and fix this to.
I make a separate folder labeled “ENGLISH DAVE BASIC” for these updates and save it to “C:\CAMWorksForSolidEdgeData\CAMWorks2014x64ForSolidEdge” in the “LANG” folder. When you are done doing this open up the TDB and click the Maintenance tab and link to your new folder but leave the old “ENGLISH” folder there and don’t mess with it. Edit the new folder you have created by the way and not the old one which is a sort of backup of last resort.
I would also save save a copy of your new file edits independently somewhere else and keep it handy. I have read stories about version and SP updates that dump your hard work. To prevent this an independent copy can always be used and linked so there is no excuse for this to ever be more than an inconvenience at worst.
Anyone with some tips and tricks on how to tame this TDB mess I will gladly post it here if you are willing to send it in. Supposedly Geometric is going to fix these libraries but I don’t think it is very important to them so be resigned to at least a year or more before anything of significance shows up here. Otherwise you get to read what I come up with for better or worse.
By the way, the internal code is now the same for both SE and SW flavors so the only difference is how it interfaces with the two programs. ALL the CAMWorks stuff for both like the TDB are identical and so I welcome and encourage SolidWorks users who use CAMWorks and feel they have something to contribute to do so.
Micheal Buchli’s “Camworks Handbook 2014” is now out and I recommend it for any user of CAMWorks. Get the PDF version online and it has like 80 minutes of imbedded video and it is the best $50.00 you will spend for training anywhere. The Tutorial section for CAMWorks is also quite good so between the two of these save some money and fire your VAR when he shows up with those $$$$$$$$ classes. Now if your VAR offers $$ classes that might be another story but I don’t know any VAR’s that do $$ training. And of course make YouTube your friend.
I want to remind SE users that there is a video creating and uploading to YouTube tool right in SE and even though Siemens officialdom has forgot it you should not. Use this tool and help your peers walk through the ins and outs of your program of choice.
Machined Audio Horn Lens 
I did the update yesterday. You need to save your old TechDB somewhere safe before doing the update, for sure. After you do the update the new database will be stock. You have to open it and “import” your old database following the instructions. The “import” applet is behind the “Maintenance” button on the TechDB opening screen. It seemed to work well, I got all the settings back that I could see.
I read the new TechDB has more tool selection based on +/- dimensional criteria instead of explicit tools, so I think it is more likely to pick a match that is already in the tool crib rather than bring a whole new tool. That’s good, I was starting to do that myself piecemeal. – Larry K
Hi Larry,
I am not crazy about the tool selection and I am trying my best to figure out a good method of removing all the endmill stuff except for a few and bringing in my 3 and 5 flute endmills. There is just so much that I have never and will never use that I figure a non machining programmer just stuck his idea of a complete list in there. Why sell Volumill and not have the tooling that makes it all work right? Lazy programmer and tightwad company easy way out I guess.
Are you making any headway with the TDB or are you just working around it like me so far?