Create tool list in Excellon object & hole milling for a certain drill diameter

[Marius Stanciu]

It could be of use to have in the Excellon object, Tools section, the ability to autoselect for each tool used in the Excellon file, a tool defined in a separate file.

That file should contain at least 4 columns: label (like T01), diameter (like 1mm or 0.047"), minimum diameter, maximum diameter. Other parameter could be feedrate.

If a tool used in the Excellon file is between a certain minimum diameter and maximum diameter found in the mentioned list, then the corresponding tool is selected in Gcode.

As an example, let's say that the Excellon file needs a tool of 0.75 mm in diameter. If in the mentioned file we have defined a tool T01 with diameter 0.8 mm and a minimum diameter of 0.71 mm and a maximum of 0.8 mm then tool T01 is the one selected in the Gcode file because 0.75 mm falls in between 0.71 mm and 0.8 mm.

Furthermore, in the Tools section of the Excellon object, it should be a second column showing the auto selected tools from the user defined tool list. For each tools it should be allowed to click on the auto selected tool (from tool list) and a menu should appear with the tools defined in the tools list (showing the diameter thus allowing the user to override the auto selection).

This tool list, combined with the ability to have custom Gcode block of commands to replace certain Gcode commands, could allow automatic toolchange.