Job Sheets make your CNC life easier
How to create job setup sheets for your Vectric projects. These job setup sheets will help you know what to expect with the material setup and toolpaths at your CNC machine. This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve Pro, Aspire, and Cut2D Pro, these features will not be available in the desktop
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Video Transcript:
Have you ever created a project in Vectric software only to come out to your machine and forget some of your settings that you set up for the toolpaths? Well, in this lesson, I'm gonna show you how to create what's called a job setup sheet, and this sheet will contain your job layout, how to set up the material, the toolpath summaries for estimated times, and then all of your detailed toolpath information.
And you may have used these before, but I'm also gonna show you how to customize these sheets so you can brand them to be your own. You can also add notes for the job, and then you can also add notes for each individual toolpath. So you could say like, don't forget to change the tool for this toolpath so you can add a little note there to remind yourself something.
All right, let's jump back to our project to learn how to do this. So creating job sheets are very simple to do. The only thing you need to do is have the pro version or Aspire to do this. If you're using a desktop version of the software, you're not gonna have this option, but if you are using 2D pro VCarve Pro or Aspire inside of the toolpath tab, you're gonna have a button near the bottom that says create job sheet.
So you want to do this after you create your design and after you create your toolpaths. Basically right before, you're about to run it on your machine. So you're gonna click create job sheet. That's gonna open up your file menu and then automatically it's gonna give you the name of your file. And then it's gonna say underscore summary, and it will be an HTML file.
You can rename this file if you like, or you can just click save. Now when you do that, it just closes down that save option. And now you have to go search for that file. So we have to go to our file menu, find that file we just saved and then double click on that to open it. And this is what you would get.
So at the very top, it's gonna say job setup sheet, it's gonna have the file name right underneath that, it's gonna have Vectric's logo. Then it's gonna have your 2D design, all the materials set up that you created inside of the project. So this will be all your homing start positions and the material sizes.
And then it's gonna give you an estimated time for every toolpath. And then it's gonna give you even more detailed information on each individual toolpath. And then from here, you can go to your file menu. You can print this and then you can print this out and take it to your machine to remind you of all these settings.
You can also use it to keep records for your projects, or you can also use it, if you have another person helping you. One person can create the files and one person can run the machine and the person running the machine will have all this information that they didn't know about. And then you could also save it as a PDF if you didn't want to print it out and you just wanted to store it on your computer.
And as you could see, this was very simple to create. Now I'm gonna show you how to do some more options with this. So let's click cancel, and we're gonna go to this other file that I created some notes in. So, if you remember that example, I showed you at the beginning, we added some job notes and some toolpath notes.
So if you wanted job notes, you wanna click edit, then go to notes. And then in here you can write whatever you like. And this can only be text in here, but you can write different notes about your project, you can add reminders, you can add finishing options and so much more in here. So this gives you a lot of freedom to add whatever you like.
And you can even add the customer information in here as well. And then once you're done, just click okay. And now whenever you create a job sheet, those notes will automatically be placed on that job sheet. So that's just for the job notes. If you want toolpath notes as. You're gonna click this button right here that says, summary of all toolpaths, looks like a little clock.
And then in here you select a toolpath and at the bottom, you'll see notes. This is where you'd type your note in and then click apply. And each toolpath can have a different note. So these are optional, but you can add notes for everyone if you like. So you can see, I just added an example for each one of these, and once you're done there, click close.
And now all of those notes will be transferred over to the job sheet. So that adds in our notes. If you wanted to customize the job sheet as well to kind of match your branding, you wanna go to gadgets and then come down here near the bottom, where it says, set up sheet editor, click on that. And then here you could see, you can change the logo.
You can change the title, you can change the colors and you can also turn on or off the different options. If you like all those options, just leave all these checked. But at the top here, you can click browse. You can find a logo. Let's say I added in one of my logos here, click open. I can customize this name, so let's say I did learn your CNC job setup sheet.
I could change one of these colors. Let's say I did some type of blue and you could just move this around and then change the, uh, color over here on the side. Just pick what you like. It's better to do a darker color here because the text at the top is white. So you want a contrasting color and you can change the text color for the rest of the sheet as well, as well as the border.
I'll leave those as default. And don't worry about messing any of this up because there is a restore button at the bottom to restore it back to the original. The only thing I noticed is when you click that button, it does not restore the title or the color. So you may have to change that manually back to the original, but once you're done here, just click, okay.
And on the first time, it may prompt you to restart the software. So if that's the case, just save your file, and then close it down and open it back up to refresh the settings. After you do it once you should not have to do that again, but now we can create our job sheet with those new settings. And I'm gonna show you one more tip here.
If you remember, when I click this before it saved it, and then I had to go searching for the file. If you want the file to open up right away, you want to click the control key and hold that in, while you click on this create job sheet. Now it's gonna look normal. It's gonna open that up again. I'm just gonna save this as number two and click save.
And since I held CTRL key, it will automatically open up the file after I click save. So that's an easy way to open this up. If you wanted to print it out right away, rather than trying to search all over for it and forgetting where you saved it. Okay, so now you can see the title has changed, the color up here has changed, the logo has changed.
These job notes are now showing up because we type some in, and then in the toolpaths, the toolpath notes are showing up as well. So that gives you a lot more options, you can run on your job setup sheets, and now this looks very professional and you can even use it for quoting a job.
You can, uh, let the customer see this to let them know like kind of time you have invested in this, or you can add notes in there for them. If you didn't want the customer to see some of this information, you can hide some of this information in the gadget options that I showed earlier. So this gives you lots of freedom to work with, and it looks very professional with your own customized branding.
Okay. So hopefully these tips helped you out and if they did make sure you like and subscribe for more
And you may have used these before, but I'm also gonna show you how to customize these sheets so you can brand them to be your own. You can also add notes for the job, and then you can also add notes for each individual toolpath. So you could say like, don't forget to change the tool for this toolpath so you can add a little note there to remind yourself something.
All right, let's jump back to our project to learn how to do this. So creating job sheets are very simple to do. The only thing you need to do is have the pro version or Aspire to do this. If you're using a desktop version of the software, you're not gonna have this option, but if you are using 2D pro VCarve Pro or Aspire inside of the toolpath tab, you're gonna have a button near the bottom that says create job sheet.
So you want to do this after you create your design and after you create your toolpaths. Basically right before, you're about to run it on your machine. So you're gonna click create job sheet. That's gonna open up your file menu and then automatically it's gonna give you the name of your file. And then it's gonna say underscore summary, and it will be an HTML file.
You can rename this file if you like, or you can just click save. Now when you do that, it just closes down that save option. And now you have to go search for that file. So we have to go to our file menu, find that file we just saved and then double click on that to open it. And this is what you would get.
So at the very top, it's gonna say job setup sheet, it's gonna have the file name right underneath that, it's gonna have Vectric's logo. Then it's gonna have your 2D design, all the materials set up that you created inside of the project. So this will be all your homing start positions and the material sizes.
And then it's gonna give you an estimated time for every toolpath. And then it's gonna give you even more detailed information on each individual toolpath. And then from here, you can go to your file menu. You can print this and then you can print this out and take it to your machine to remind you of all these settings.
You can also use it to keep records for your projects, or you can also use it, if you have another person helping you. One person can create the files and one person can run the machine and the person running the machine will have all this information that they didn't know about. And then you could also save it as a PDF if you didn't want to print it out and you just wanted to store it on your computer.
And as you could see, this was very simple to create. Now I'm gonna show you how to do some more options with this. So let's click cancel, and we're gonna go to this other file that I created some notes in. So, if you remember that example, I showed you at the beginning, we added some job notes and some toolpath notes.
So if you wanted job notes, you wanna click edit, then go to notes. And then in here you can write whatever you like. And this can only be text in here, but you can write different notes about your project, you can add reminders, you can add finishing options and so much more in here. So this gives you a lot of freedom to add whatever you like.
And you can even add the customer information in here as well. And then once you're done, just click okay. And now whenever you create a job sheet, those notes will automatically be placed on that job sheet. So that's just for the job notes. If you want toolpath notes as. You're gonna click this button right here that says, summary of all toolpaths, looks like a little clock.
And then in here you select a toolpath and at the bottom, you'll see notes. This is where you'd type your note in and then click apply. And each toolpath can have a different note. So these are optional, but you can add notes for everyone if you like. So you can see, I just added an example for each one of these, and once you're done there, click close.
And now all of those notes will be transferred over to the job sheet. So that adds in our notes. If you wanted to customize the job sheet as well to kind of match your branding, you wanna go to gadgets and then come down here near the bottom, where it says, set up sheet editor, click on that. And then here you could see, you can change the logo.
You can change the title, you can change the colors and you can also turn on or off the different options. If you like all those options, just leave all these checked. But at the top here, you can click browse. You can find a logo. Let's say I added in one of my logos here, click open. I can customize this name, so let's say I did learn your CNC job setup sheet.
I could change one of these colors. Let's say I did some type of blue and you could just move this around and then change the, uh, color over here on the side. Just pick what you like. It's better to do a darker color here because the text at the top is white. So you want a contrasting color and you can change the text color for the rest of the sheet as well, as well as the border.
I'll leave those as default. And don't worry about messing any of this up because there is a restore button at the bottom to restore it back to the original. The only thing I noticed is when you click that button, it does not restore the title or the color. So you may have to change that manually back to the original, but once you're done here, just click, okay.
And on the first time, it may prompt you to restart the software. So if that's the case, just save your file, and then close it down and open it back up to refresh the settings. After you do it once you should not have to do that again, but now we can create our job sheet with those new settings. And I'm gonna show you one more tip here.
If you remember, when I click this before it saved it, and then I had to go searching for the file. If you want the file to open up right away, you want to click the control key and hold that in, while you click on this create job sheet. Now it's gonna look normal. It's gonna open that up again. I'm just gonna save this as number two and click save.
And since I held CTRL key, it will automatically open up the file after I click save. So that's an easy way to open this up. If you wanted to print it out right away, rather than trying to search all over for it and forgetting where you saved it. Okay, so now you can see the title has changed, the color up here has changed, the logo has changed.
These job notes are now showing up because we type some in, and then in the toolpaths, the toolpath notes are showing up as well. So that gives you a lot more options, you can run on your job setup sheets, and now this looks very professional and you can even use it for quoting a job.
You can, uh, let the customer see this to let them know like kind of time you have invested in this, or you can add notes in there for them. If you didn't want the customer to see some of this information, you can hide some of this information in the gadget options that I showed earlier. So this gives you lots of freedom to work with, and it looks very professional with your own customized branding.
Okay. So hopefully these tips helped you out and if they did make sure you like and subscribe for more
