Can you share a Trotec materials database over a network?

[Tony Schick]

Is there a way to point the JC 10.3.0 software at a shared folder on a network so we can all share the same materials database?
I have the shared spool folder working well (now), but when you send a Trotec JC job to another machine, the settings don't go with it.

Thanks
Tony

[Gene Howard]

Hi Tony,

As far as I know the path to the database is static per install and cannot be changed. For JC X (10.x) it can be found at "C:\ProgramData\Trotec\JobControl\10.3.0\Trotec.db".

The best trick for "synchronizing" materials between engravers is to ensure that category and material names match exactly between installs. This allows you to share jobs between workstations but each will inherit the Speed, Power, PPI/Hz from its local database copy. Even two identical machines are going to have some variation in settings on the same material.

If for some reason you do decide to exactly synchronize your databases you can use a simple backup program to copy the DB from one "master" workstation to the others. We use Cobian Backup (freeware) to synchronize from one of our laser workstations to all of our job-sending workstations. Best practice is to only have it run the copy when JobControl is unlikely to be in use since there is the chance of file corruption if you overwrite the DB while it's in use.

I would also recommend setting up another backup job that runs on a regular schedule to have time-divided backups of your material database(s). Nothing like finding out someone mucked up your primary material settings and no one remember what they should be!

[Tony Schick]

Thanks Gene, I suspected as much. I think we'll go for the sync option making sure there's no-one using it at the time.
Seems like a good thing to add as a feature I would think.

Cheers
Tony
Fab Lab Adelaide