adding bits to vcarve

[Stephen White]

OK I am new to the CNC world and trying to come up to speed as quickly as I can. I bought a double flute straight bit for fly cutting and a Whiteside CNC carving starter set with 5 bits.

Unless I am missing something I will want to remove all the bits that are pre-loaded in the tool database and then add mine in one at a time. Is there some place to easily get the info to do this for most bits or do I need to take each bit and load a custom profile for each? Should I add in any of the regular router bits I own for my table mounted router? My CNC is an AR4 basic and uses a router instead of a spindle.

Is there any links someone can suggest to match up bit names to vcarve?

[Alan Marchbanks]

If you haven't already, go to the Vectric site and browse the video tutorials. As I recall, several will show how to enter or edit tools in the data base. It isn't difficult and there is a lot of info in the tutorials. I am also a newbie (first of the year) and have found the tutorials invaluable. Enjoy your CNC.
Alan

[Bruce Page]

I always just used what was already in the tool database. I recently upgraded to Aspire 8.5 and spent the time to sit down and enter all my specific cutters and delete all the redundant Vectric stuff. Between end mills, ball mills, v-bits, engraving bits, drag bits, corner rounding bits, and drill bits I have about 40 entries. It took a couple of hours but was not hard to do. As far as adding your regular router bits, if they are decent bits, why not? I have a personal rule that I wont run any bits with a bearing on the CNC.

Here's a couple of informational PDF's I found on the web that might be of some help.

[Stephen White]

thanks guys, yeah just have 7 cnc ones and loaded those pretty fast.I just left what they had loaded and made a new group of owned bits. I think I will also load the dozen or so regular ones I have. One question that remains is finding the specs for spped and plunge rate. I been told it will help a lot with longgevity of bit. How long many projects do you gus get out of bits?