I have been working off a spreadsheet for the time being but will import it to HanDbase. Just don’t want to take the time to design the data entry form.
In the meanwhile, what would you consider as essential for recording prints? What fields, what data, what observations.
It would be interesting to make it relational. Have a design table linked to a print table so you can document the iterations of a design that you document in the other table.
What is your current practice. Thanks for the guidance!
I’m just commenting to make sure I notice other replies. I have been wondering this as well. There’s the obvious things like material, speed, and power. I’m sure I could get carried away with lots of other data that ultimately wouldn’t be that useful. I’m looking forward to hearing what others have to say.
I don’t have a laser yet either, but what about recording how the laser did? Items like char on the edges of wood, any flair-UPS , did paper discolor on the edges, and are the edges of acrylic cuts polished.
I have been very lackadaisical about recording my findings, mainly because I never knew if they were going to change.
The few times I made an effort iI would just jot down some notes on a piece of paper and take a picture of everything including the notes. I figured I would make a spreadsheet and transcribe the notes “eventually”.
In the mean time I try to name the pictures in a reasonable way and keep them in a folder with the SVGs and any source documents.
When I am looking for notes I just scroll through my folders and view the images.
This does not scale well!
So I keep a little Moleskine notebook (may go to HanDbase myself - interesting looking product).
I have the following info:
Project number
Reference project if any (this is for iterations of a project over time so I can follow how I got to this one)
Date
Start Time
End Time
Elapsed Time
Design file used
Design source (if I used someone else’s design)
Name of the Picture of laser settings in the software (I take pictures with my phone of the settings - easier than writing them down)
Name of the Picture of the end result (can we attach pictures as fields in HanDbase?)
Material type
Material size
Material source
Material cost
Cut power
Cut speed
Engrave power
Engrave speed (these give me a starting point next time - I usually have a fair number of different cuts/engraves in a single project so these are the settings I used most in the project, the settings picture will show me the rest by line color)
Material acquired date
% Material used (e.g. I do a lot with stock sized material - 12x12, 12x24, 18x24 that I won’t use up for a project so I don’t want to “price” a full sheet when I only use a quarter of one)
Number of iterations needed to get dialed in (like did I have to make 3 before I got the settings right)
Masking type
Finishing (how I intend to finish it - paint, natural, oil, etc)
Comments (anything special about the cut occur or I thought of to make it better next time)
Who it was done for
I don’t do this for a living but do like to know how much things cost me in time & materials so I can estimate what it will take for something I make for someone. I think this would be useful for someone doing it commercially though.
In a database I’d add some sort of classification system so later I could find holiday gifts or signs or utilities (like my calibration tools), etc. Right now I keep those in different directories in my overall LaserProjects folder on my laptop so I can go find things by subject/topic by scanning the files but having a database field would make it easy to find which one I was looking for pretty fast.
In a database version links to the files would be great (and some provision for searches on the back-links so you could answer questions like "Does this design cut OK in X kind of wood, or only in Y kind of wood and in acrylic?)
I like the idea of recording how many tries to dial in. And/or some kind of big comment field…
This is similar to what I use for CNC plasma cutting and CNC milling, With lots of perfect additions! only thing I would add is the thickness of material.
While this may not scale well, I’m not sure there is a consistent set of information to be collected for every project. Personally, I find this type of ad-hock documentation to work best for me when I next come around to work on that project again.
I fully understand this does not work well for sharing findings with others.
Wow…thats alot of detail…I generally record material, thickness, power and speed settings for vector cut, vector engrave and raster engrave. I also note the kerf for each as well.
Yeah, it’s potentially overkill but it’s the engineer in me
I teach laser classes (operations & design) at the local MakerSpace so some of this helps them because they provide materials. So I do it for everything so it becomes a habit.
The time stuff is something I found to be pretty useful - I tend to do things that I will end up repeating later for someone else and I like to know before I jump in whether I’m going to be spending 20 minutes or 2 hours babysitting the machine
I updated my posting so it’s there for 