Managing Tool Offsets on a Lathe

Accessing Tool Library

The list of stored Tool Offsets (AKA Tool Library) can be accessed by selecting the "Tool Library" option from the Application Drawer Menu. This will bring up a dialog as shown below.

UI Elements

Fig. 1: TouchDRO Saved Tool Offset List
Fig. 1: TouchDRO Saved Tool Offset List

How to Use Tool Offset List

This dialog can be used to enter new tool offsets, and edit or delete existing tool offsets:

Add Tool Dialog

Fig. 2: Add New Tool Dialog
Fig. 2: Add New Tool Dialog

Name

Tool name (required) is shown in the tool dropdown list on the "Tool Offset" dialog.The name can contain any alphanumeric characters and the length is not restricted. For practical reasons (display size constraints) it's recommended to use tool names that are under 20 characters.

Description

Optional tool description can contain any combination of alphanumeric characters. This field is displayed only on this screen (and is included in the CSV file export).

Cutter Type

Cutter type is optional and is currently not displayed anywhere outside of this screen.

The field is a placeholder for functionality that will be added to a figure version and for now can be left unchanged.

X and Y Offsets

X and Y offsets (separate fields) are required fields that determine the tool offset. The value can be a positive or negative number.

Sync Button

The "Sync" buttons next to the offset fields pre-load the additive inverse current readout value of the given axis I.e. the value will be the same number but with the opposite sign. For example, if the current readout shows 0.250, the field will be preloaded with "-0.250".

Units Label

The units for the tool offset will be the same as the settings for the TouchDRO units system ("Metric Mode" setting)

Edit Tool Dialog

The Edit Tool Dialog is identical to the Add Tool Dialog, with the only obvious difference that when the dialog is opened, the existing information for the selected tool is pre-loaded into the fields.