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Length calculator
Support Team
Under review -- thanks for the idea
I have attached a worksheet that we use to do splicing, perhaps you could reverse engineer it. The length of our lumber varies greatly as to what we can get our hands on so splicing is dependent upon stock lumber length. For the sides we've found that using a 28" offset will yield a good solution more often than not. This number will guarantee that the sheet goods are never the same as a lumber length lining up on a splice. I use the number of splices yielded in the calculator to aid me in making sure that the correct amount of splice plates are on the build.
The base and rub strips (lower assembly) we run in 32" centers on the skids thus the available lumber needs to be rounded down to the nearest integer of 32". On the long top offs we are required to section the lid for ease of movement on the customers end. The 1x4's need to reflect the cut list of the sheet goods minus .25" so that the boards don't have interference with the joint and for this reason only I have included the 24" splice calculator.
The logic is almost complete but what I'm trying to do is maximize the splice difference, maximize the splice within a range +- from the sheet goods and reduce the total amount of splices needed. Some times two solutions come up that are a dead tie on the logic and I usually need to refer back to the cut list of sheet goods to make the determination manually.
The inputs to the calculator are available lumber length which should be easy to change, (not buried in material properties) and the calculated overall length which your software already calculates.
After I export the design pieces for the days production in Excel I need to find these long lengths and manually re-enter them and delete the row with the long value that was exported from CratePro. I could in theory have 4 line entries that replace the one. This is not fun to do when time is of the essence and mistakes in manual entry can and have happened.
Another issue I would like to see different in the next version is the availability to manually select the output of the information in the design pieces without having to run the output through a refining macro. Similar to the selection process for the print feature. There are a lot of columns that I do not need to get my crew running for the day.
Support Team
Thanks! We'll use this as a review and see what's possible.
Cory Schudel
It would be nice to have the "splice calculator" apply to the base lumber/rub strips and side lumber. If a person was to be able to input the center distances between splices in both Lower assembly and Sides (similar to what is calculated in the panels). The addition of a new input category located to the right of the lumber selection drop down tab that would allow a person to pick from available lengths of lumber in inventory and would be the basis for the splice calculator. If a company has only one length of lumber available then there should be a way of having a default length that gets set.
Example: We use a 32" center on our lower assembly. We frequently have builds whose length exceed our longest inventory. We put the CratePro calculated length into our Excel program that does:
"Stock Lumber Length=SLL"
"i=1,2"
(L/2)-i(32)=SideA
SideB=L-SideA
SideA-i(Stock Lumber Length) and/or Rounddown(SideA/SLL)
If Side B>SLL:SLL and Side B-SLL
This cut little program is shorthand and is not the true code but it will give you an idea of what we are trying to do. The same principal should apply to the sides which we run at 24" centers. Typically in our business anything over 24' will go to an I beam and dimensional lumber is not an issue with splicing. If on the sides we are limited to using 8 footers we will typically take 24" off the length to begin with, forcing another splice so that the sheet goods splice don't line up.
Things to consider in the new version of your software.