PowerMILL Excel SetupSheet plugin

[michael.grenier4GVTU]

Hi Everyone,

I've been working on another plugin last year that was just publicly released.  This one will let you create an excel template to export your setupsheets.  It gives you a bit more flexibility than the current setupsheet we have in PowerMILL.  On top of that, since the source code is available you can do whatever you want with it.  The plugin include a folder of sample files and some documentation as to how to use it.

I'm joining the pdf I made to give you an idea of what is available but also what can be done with it.

https://github.com/Autodesk/powermill-api-examples/tree/master/addin-excel-setup-sheet

Enjoy!

Michael

[JanNavratil]

Hi Michael,

ah, I miss that somehow. Thank you !!

Jan

[JanNavratil]

Hi, 

one more thing about the stock size - we are not able to get the same values as the model size for the stock right now right? I mean the block stock, simple one.

Thanks,

Jan

[michael.grenier4GVTU]

You can get the size of the stock using the following {ncprogram.block.xsize}, {ncprogram.block.ysize}, {ncprogram.block.zsize}, but this won't give you the minimum and maximum positions of each corner.  It would be fairly easy to add to the plugin though...

Michael

[JanNavratil]

Hello,

thank you, Ive made the changes in the addin and now i have parameters 

{ncprogram.block.xmin}

{ncprogram.block.xmax}

{ncprogram.block.ymin}

{ncprogram.block.ymax}

{ncprogram.block.zmin}

{ncprogram.block.zmax}

But on github I found that there is version 1.6 but in the install you provided there is version 1.8. Can you provide please the latest project 1.8? 

Thanks,

Jan

[michael.grenier4GVTU]

The changes I did between 1.6 and 1.8 were minimal and mainly for a specific personal case so it would probably not change anything for you anyway.  Updating the plugin version on github is not something I can do in 5 minutes unfortunately because of internal protocols so you'll have to use this one but like I said, I don't think the other release would bring you much benefit anyway.

Hope this helps

[JanNavratil]

Thank you !

[Anonymous]

What a nice little plug-in.

From the tool settings form I'm looking at pulling the ToolID from the Cutting Tab.

Unfortunately,  this parameter isn't in the list of available  parameters, is it something that can be added?

Can I add it myself and how would I do this?

[michael.grenier4GVTU]

In order to do that, you would have to download a copy of the plugin source code at the following link and add support for it.  This is one is fairly easy to add but not so much to explain in a thread like this.

https://github.com/Autodesk/powermill-api-examples/tree/master/addin-excel-setup-sheet

Now, as far as you specific request, since it's a 2min job I did add support for this parameter for you into the plugin.

Hope this helps!

Michael

[Anonymous]

Michael.
Thankyou for the update, I'll give it a go and provide you some feedback.

[Anonymous]

Have tested this plug-in with great results allowing us to easily move the data from the excel sheets into our SAP system. In addition, for work that's not required by S.A.P we use the excel sheets for the machine set up.

My only difficulty is obtaining the Set up notes from

setups ==> setup item, right click Settings ==> Notes

I see no details come through while using the parameter {ncprogram.notes}

[michael.grenier4GVTU]

Hi, you are right, the plugin doesn't support setup notes but it does support nc program notes.  when you right click on the ncprogram, go to edit - user defined settings - notes and description, this is what should be pulled by the plugin.

[metalurgicaprogreso]

I still think Autodesk should include this plugin as a feature in PowerMill. It cannot be that hard or resource consuming, and it would make life a lot easier for a lot of us!

[michael.grenier4GVTU]

This has been discussed, but since it was written in C# and we felt like we would be getting a LOT of wishes from customers asking for new parameters (like it was the case for the embedded setupsheet), we thought it was a better plan to release the source code so that the community could pick it up and improve it for their custom needs.  But thanks for the suggestion, it's always flattering to hear!

[Anonymous]

Yes I agree.

If setup sheets can be coded for HTML then surely giving the option of a Excel spreadsheet just as easy.

I found this excel option much easier than HTML, but, I don't know much about html, in addition, I needed a solution to allow for import into our manufacturing system which can import from a spreadsheet.

[JanNavratil]

Hello,

our company just upgraded to Office 365 and the addin stopped working.PowerMill just keep dropping during the creation of the SS. Any solution please? 😞

Thanks,

Jan

[omartiz]

Good afternoon to all,

i'm trying to set the plugin for Italian version. 
In order to debug the error i switch both the system and PowerMill to English and everything go smooth.

When i switch back Pmill to Italian the plugin crash just after the model scanning.
Someone have any Hint to which command set the problem or how to debug with visual studio community edition?

Thanks in advance.

[metalurgicaprogreso]

Dear @omartiz 

I had the same issue, but with Spanish. I found that the best thing to do is work with Powermill in your native language and once you are ready to do the setup sheets, you close the project and switch to English.

This is a bit tedious for us because we work with big projects (usually several GB) but, for the moment, there is no alternative!

Hope this is useful.

Regards.

[omartiz]

thanks @metalurgicaprogreso for your feedback. It is tedious of course..... 
I hope that @michael.grenier4GVTU  can give me some hints so I can try to solve it and maybe i can help you also.

Have a nice evening

[metalurgicaprogreso]

Dear @JanNavratil 

This is weird. We also have office 365, and have no problems at all. Maybe there is something wrong with the office install. I would try reinstalling both, office and the plugin.

I would also check that Excel opens without any prompt (licencing problems for example). This might interfere with the ss creation.

Regards.

[michael.grenier4GVTU]

Same here, the plugin has been developed and tested using Office 365 as this is all I've got.  The one thing I've heard is that some people have the "cloud" version of it and I think the API is missing when you do so, which would cause the plugin to fail.  Maybe look at that...