E3 Toolbox
Hi All,
I am aware of E3 Toolbox.
Is anyone in the community here using it? Worth the money? Benefits? etc?
I have only seem a brief demo during a webinar, so not seen it or tried it in anger.
If I go for it, I would need to justify the cost and savings to my bosses. I know what they will say - something along these lines " So you have E3 that has an BOM output, also a E3 reports with a BOM output. Both of these do not do what we want, but you now want me to pay HOW MUCH for a tool that should already be there?
I'm sure you have been in a similar position to me. We are not a huge company, so money for tools is tight.
Any help gratefully recieved
Kind regards
Jeff
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This is an interesting question. E3 Toolbox looks to offer exactly a set of the functions that are built into Harness Builder (which we have). BOM on sheet and in Excel, Splice tables, Find Numbers on components, etc. etc. Not sure if there is something more to E3 Toolbox or if it is considered a subset of the tools in Harness Builder...?
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The Toolbox is a stand alone product and is not a subset of harness builder tool. It does share the functional space and is for users who do not want or have the need for harness builder.
The major points to think about Toolbox is the ability to customize your BOM and wire run lists without programming.
The Toolbox is great for detailed output without the effort of creating it yourself.
More details can be found here -
https://us.zuken.com/e3series/toolbox/Was this Helpful?
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I share the same sentiment with the Toolbox for e3, it appears it is handicapped on purpose?
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If your company has very specific requirements and you have some programming / scripting knowledge, another solution might be to write something yourself.
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Hi Paul,
We don't have "specific" requirements other than to add a column to the BOM out put to put our company part numbers on. I have modified the scripts to make this happen, but it occurs to me that at every release I will have to modify and check the scripts such that they work with the new version. This did not happen with the latest release and my BOM output crashed.
It seems to me that using Toolbox means no need to modify the scripts at each release and Toolbox is supported.
Trouble is, I have to justify the time and cost for both solutions. Can't get E3 reports to work properly either!
Regards
Jeff
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Are the scripts you're referring to the Zuken provided ones? If you have something that works, just make a copy of the ones you modified, so it doesn't get overwritten when you go to a new version and, at each new version, it will simply be a matter of changing the menu item to point to it; E3 should have no trouble running the same script at the new version.
I am still using a script I wrote for E3 2009. The only changes I really ever had to make was to support MS Office changes and some Windows stuff between XP and Win7.
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Hi Paul,
Yes thats exactly what I did. The scripts were modified E3 ones and saved to a "install" directory. there were grabbed using a batch file and copied to the installed directory.
This worked fine until I installed 2017. This went unnoticed until I ran a BOM containing an assembly.
Then crash. Bom does not work. It has taken me ages to get to the bottom of why certain bom outputs work and others crashed.
It must be due to the way >2017 handles assemblies, this is new.
So I just figured why do I keep modifying scripts when I could use Toolbox?
Have you tried your scripts with a design with assemblies?
Regards
Jeff
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Without seeing what you doing, I really can't advise you anymore.
Just consider the possibility of a user error. If Zuken's BOM script crashes on your assembly, just don't assume the Toolbox won't. The scripting routines are probably similar.
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for your replies. I think we are in danger of drifting off the thread.
I am not looking to fix my problem, I have fixed it to the point where it is usable. I just don't want to keep fixing it at every new install.
My question was about E3 toolbox and is it worth the investment. What I have seen of it, then I think it is, but I would have liked feedback positive or negative from anyone who actually uses it.
That way, I could start to justify it to my bosses.
Kind regrads
Jeff
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