Thread: Template Guide Calculator - Download

Charts and calculators are fine, but routologists shouldn't be like the average cashier, who, when the power to the computerised till fails, have great difficulty adding up a row of figures
Calculating the size of opening in a female template we deduct the diameter of the bit from that of the template guide and add this to the required size of the finished item. For a simple example, we are going to rout a round dish with internal diameter 150mm and decide to use a 40mm guide and a 10mm bit, then:
40mm - 10mm + 150mm = 180mm size of hole in the template. When we deduct the bit diameter from that of the guide then divide by two, the result is known as the off-set. In the above example the off-set is 15mm.

Totally agree but the purpose of the software is not to remove the need to think, but rather to evaluate the various options available without wearing out a set of batteries on a calculator, or filling a book full of calculus scribbles.
Lets imagine for a moment you are building a set of speakers (which I am) and you plan to construct the speakers boxes using a stacked layered approach (which I am).
You use a straight cut router bit to cut out the speaker center hole and rebate the driver recess. Fairly straight forward so far, but now you want to use a tapered router bit to cut the ID and OD of the following layers, and every layer that follows must start where the last one left off.
So now you need to make numerous calculations and work out the various permutations, of available guides and bits that you have in your collection, and those you might need to buy.
With all these calculations it is very easy to forget to divide or multiply something and you wind up wrecking a whole heap of wood.
The calculator is to provide an easy way to evaluate what you have available in your arsenal, to reduce the need to build a template for every step of the process, or to buy new guides and router bits when you already have a combination that would have worked.

Originally Posted by HeadScratcher

Totally agree but the purpose of the software is not to remove the need to think, but rather to evaluate the various options available without wearing out a set of batteries on a calculator, or filling a book full of calculus scribbles.
Lets imagine for a moment you are building a set of speakers (which I am) and you plan to construct the speakers boxes using a stacked layered approach (which I am).
You use a straight cut router bit to cut out the speaker center hole and rebate the driver recess. Fairly straight forward so far, but now you want to use a tapered router bit to cut the ID and OD of the following layers, and every layer that follows must start where the last one left off.
So now you need to make numerous calculations and work out the various permutations, of available guides and bits that you have in your collection, and those you might need to buy.
With all these calculations it is very easy to forget to divide or multiply something and you wind up wrecking a whole heap of wood.
The calculator is to provide an easy way to evaluate what you have available in your arsenal, to reduce the need to build a template for every step of the process, or to buy new guides and router bits when you already have a combination that would have worked.

My intention was not to denigrate your efforts, in fact I couldn't get your program to work, but, because newcomers to routing usually come to forums like this for guidance, I thought that your thread may have given the impression that choosing a template guide and bit combination was a very complex calculation, which for most projects is far from that.
As a guy that spent several years as service manager for Douglas Hi-Fi, The Audio Centre and Alberts Hi-Fi all in Perth, I'm intrigued by your speaker design and hope that you'll post some progress shots.

That’s fine I didn’t feel like you were try to belittle my efforts, but you do raise a very good point. I didn’t at any time fully explain the purpose of why I was writing the software, and therefore left it open for people to draw their own conclusions.

So best if I clarify that point now. When I first joined the forum (a very short time ago) I noticed Template Tom was touting the benefits of using templates. As a complete novice (don’t even own a router yet…. been too busy writing software) I thought to myself what great idea for my upcoming project which is going to be quite tricky.

I knew I could do the math fairly easily on a bit of paper, but thought wouldn’t it be great if I could run different scenarios whereby I could reduce the amount of templates / guides / router bits I need to achieve the project.

Figuring that if a complete novice could find it useful to have a handy way to do quick calculations on the fly, how much more useful would it be for a seasoned veteran to be able to pick from their assortment of guides and bits that they have accumulated over the years.

And whilst the application is quite basic in its function, I also figure that most people wouldn’t go to the effort of spending hundreds of hours writing an application that does so little, but small doesn’t necessarily mean useless, and if enough people could use the app to save time and simplify their lives, it would be worth the effort I am putting in to write it.

I expect it will be many years before I can add anything of any significance to the forum in terms of wood working advice, but I’m sure going to need some, so I figure I would do what I am ok at to do my bit to give back to the wood working community.

With regards to your installation problems please describe in detail what is happening and I will see if I can step you through it. Most of the applications I write I run directly from VB, so I don’t have a huge amount of experience in application packaging… perhaps it is something I have done wrong and need to release a new build.

Just in case you missed my build thread it is located here with a few pics to see show what I plan to do... https://www.woodworkforums.com/f99/no...uilder-144661/

Hi headscratcher,

I have downloaded the program, and successfully installed ot onto my Windows 7 laptop. The only issue I have, and it is somewhat of a show stopper, is that it wont fit on my screen. I am set to 1366 x 768 landscape, and the program screen truncates just below centre of the top view of the guide. Without scroll bars, I cannot get to the lower part of the screen.

I'd give you a screenshot, but I cannot find the installed program again. Where does it install to?

Hi Chris for Windows 7 go to “All Programs” >> DBIT – Dodgy Bros IT >> Template Guide Calculator.
I’ m running Windows 7 with 1680 x 1050 resolution. The lowest it will allow me to go around that size is either 1440 x 900, or 1280 x 1024 which should be roughly around what you’re seeing.
At 1280 x 1024 is scales ok and I can see the whole screen fine in both the normal sized window and maximised.
At 1440 x 900 I can just see bearing location in normal sized window and the same in maximised. So nothing is being cut off, but it goes close.
Down the track I plan to have all of the controls resize to suit the specific resolution you are running.
A screen shot would be good to see what it’s doing on your screen.

It is more than likely the 768 that is causing all the grief... as you have roughly 130 less vertical pixels that I do at 900. I will stop what I'm doing and get to work on making it open up in the maximised state and scale to fit most normal resolutions.

Screenshot attached. If I maximise, the only difference it makes. is to put more grey area on the right side.

Yes that is definitely a straight forward resolution issue caused by setting static object sizes to things in a development environment with a higher screen resolution. That’s not too difficult to fix, I wrote an app for work recently whereby I dynamically resized a number of items based on the screen resolution so this shouldn’t be too hard to fix.

Hi All,
<O</O
Just a quick update… With trying to squeeze all the different items on the screen down to a size that could be viewed on practically any size screen, I ran into a little snag with resizing the Part # combo box (trying to resize based on the longest item in the collection).<O</O
<O
I have now worked out a way to scale it accordingly, and hope to have a new Preview Edition out early next week.<O</O
<O
Paul

Do we need to uninstall the previous version?

Good question and is one I have been thinking about as I haven’t really had a lot of exposure to software packaging… You will still need the .net framework that installed as part of the initial set up, and all future versions will leverage that, but the tiny bit of code that is the executable will more than likely be overwritten in the install process.

I will try it out on my PC first and provide instruction as to how to update. The new version “should” theoretically install in a fraction of the time, as the biggest portion of the code by far is actually the Microsoft .net framework, which will remain during the install of the new edition.

Preview Edition 2 is now available...

Uninstall:
Please remove the previous preview edition before installing this one. The following instructions are for Windows 7, other version of Windows will be similar, but not exactly the same.
To remove it go to Control Panel > Program and Features > Template Guide Calculator
Right click on “Template Guide Calculator” and left click “Uninstall / Change”.
The will pop up another window. Click on “Remove the application from this computer” on then click “OK”.
Please note I changed the folder name from “DBIT –Dodgy Bros IT” to just “Dodgy Bros”, so if the old folder is still in the Start Menu after you uninstall the current edition, right click and delete it.

Install:
Unzip the Template Guide Calculator package and click on Setup.exe... all done.
I have also included a new database with additional router bit entries to stop an error occurring when you select... File > Select Router Bit.
Later on I will create an input box for you to put in your own Guide and Bit entries, but for now use the updated database to avoid the error you will get with the first version of the database.
The next release of the software will be a proper version, basic but complete enough to be called working software.
I hope you enjoy the latest offering.

I probably should have asked before… the primary purpose of the second preview release was to resize the graphics to suit a wide variety of screen resolutions.
　
While being a small visual change, it took a lot of code to make these changes. All the controls labels, combination boxes, group boxes etc. are now drawn at run time rather than just statically plonking them on the form like the first preview edition.
　
I would appreciate any feedback on how it looks on your screen resolution / computer graphics card. I have a fairly decent high end laptop so it might display better than some older machines, so I’m keen to know if there are any bugs that might need fixing.
　
Rather than trying to make the window as small as possible, the application now starts up in the maximised mode. It still can be reduced to a smaller size and made even smaller by dragging the borders in, but the minimum size is currently set at 1024 x 768.
　
Also are there any additional dimensions you would like to see on the drawing?
　
You will note that I have now included a dimension from the cutter outer edge to the outside of the guide, which of course is the main purpose of the application.
　
I was thinking about throwing in another measurement from the bottom of the router bit radius to provide a minimum and maximum distance. Would this be useful or just cluttering up the page?
　
Any other suggestions around the visual side of things will now be considered before I move on to making it possible to add / edit / delete your own data.
　
Remember I don’t even own a router yet, so I could possibly overlook something that is extremely obvious to others.

I will add other router bit types once data can be added.

I notice that people are still downloading the original version of the software. Unfortunately I can’t edit the first post to remove and replace the zip file, so if you are downloading the software please use the version closest to the end of the thread as it will be the most current.