Tip of the Day 128: Cross-Copy Does More…

More than what? Well, more than just copy mold configurations between eDART™s so that they can run on different machines. The name „Cross-Copy“ denotes this one function but it was designed and built to do much more (note: This applies to EDM users and those with cross-copy installed on test Insight Servers.). Some customers have thought that since their molds are dedicated to one machine only they don’t need the „cross-copy“ function.

Here is a short list of functions that you can do to enhance your network experience:

• 
  Pre-create molds, materials or cavity setups in the „eDART Configurations\…“ folder on the EDM and have them ready to go on the eDARTs when a new job starts.


• 
  Copy a mold folder from an EDM in a plant or tryout shop and drop it into a folder on the EDM at your plant to get the whole configuration: sensor locations, pin sizes, templates, alarms, controls (valve gate and other), graph setups etc.


• 
  To set up a new job on a mold with a new material, copy and paste a current material into the mold folder. All of your current settings will then be ready to run as a close starting point if you start the job with the new material. Any adjustments you save will not affect the process setup for the previous material.


• 
  Drop photos and setup notes into EDM folders and have them ready to read on the eDARTs when the job starts (see tips # 71 and 72 )


• 
  If an eDART is damaged and must be replaced, all the configurations exist on the EDM for both mold and machine (e.g.s sequence setup, injection pressure scaling etc.) and are therefore not lost. The new eDART will accept the configurations when it is installed, identify the machine from the Sequence Module and set itself up as it was before.


• 
  Install an eDART on a new machine and have mold configurations ready to go to run one of your existing molds on the new machine.


• Even if molds do not move between machines the cross-copy system copies the security settings across the plant. Thus you only need to set security on one eDART to get it set up on the rest.


• The above is also true of views and default settings for Cycle Graph colors etc.


• If a mold, material or cavitation is named improperly you can re-name it on the EDM. This will change the name across the plant.


• If molds are retired or were junk (e.g. the „test“ mold that no one knows what it is) you can delete them from all of the eDARTs by deleting the mold name on the EDM.

With all of the above available with cross-copy I recommend that you leave it operating.

This sheet contains some of the basic concepts and how-to instructions.

Concerns:

Even with all of the above advantages some customers have expressed concerns.

1. Someone can rename or delete a mold on the EDM and wipe out its settings across the plant. Here are some ideas for mitigating that risk.

• Have the IT people set up domain security for the eDART Configurations folder.


• Always copy (or cut) and paste mold folders to an „obsolete“ area, never delete them.


• If enough people ask we could add a switch to the configuration to prevent any deleting and re-naming plant wide. If you actually did delete a mold on the EDM the eDARTs would copy it back up again.

2. Some valve gate controls need to be different for the same mold run on a different machine. We don’t have a „clean“ solution for this yet. But here is one idea.

• Use the „Cavities“ level to specify the machine. The valve gate control strategy is saved under the lowest level used. Then teach the technicians to select the machine from the list under „Cavities“.
  
  
  This is not automated but would work for now.

Tip of the Day 120: How to Handle All That Data

As many of you know the eDART saves the detailed cycle curve data as well as the summary values for each shot. The cycle curve data takes up a lot of room on the eDART’s and eDART Data Manager’s (EDM’s) disks relative to the summary data. With many eDARTs attached to an EDM (or server) all copying their data up daily this can create a huge pile.

As long as the eDART or EDM’s hard drives do not fill up all the data is saved. However you can loose old data from either when the hard drive gets close to full. Both the eDART and EDM have a rollover mechanism that uses a high-water mark on cycle and summary data as a percentage of the disk. This system attempts to preserve summary data as long as possible by removing cycle data first.

Nevertheless, eventually the old summary data will be removed to make room for the new. When that happens all record of the parts is lost. If you are serious about saving data for tracking purposes here are a few techniques from which to choose to ensure it never is lost.

• • Use commercial archiving programs to burn DVD’s of the oldest data (cycle and summary) on a regular basis (before the rollover removes it).

     

• • Periodically remove old cycle data from the EDM in favor of keeping the summary data. This can be done by using the Windows „Search“ feature on the EDM’s „ftp“ directory. In the search box put “  *.cycle.ph2 “ to search for all cycle data files. Then click the „Modified“ heading (once or twice) to sort by date. Select the oldest cycle files and delete them.

     

    You may have specific molds for which you want to keep cycle data. In that case, sort by the „In Folder“ column and, by holding the CTL key, un-select files for those molds before deleting.

     

• • Set up the eDART to copy only cycle data to the EDM that has notes associated with it. Thus if something odd was going on and someone left a note there would always be cycle data there to go with it.

     

• • Set up the eDART to send only summary data to the EDM or server. This is obviously the most severe method and the analyzer will never be able to show cycle data this way. But summary data contains most of the information required for analysis of long term trends and is therefore still useful.

     

RJG Customer Support can help you set up the switches for the last two methods above.

Tip of the Day 59: What is the eDART Data Manager For? (formerly „Server“)

Tip of the Day 4: FTP and Server Overflow