Add a material in the Production Parameters -> Materials tab using the button “Add Material”. Here you will find the popup with AMFG’s database of over 13,000 materials for Additive and CNC machining.
Use the search function, or explore the material database via the categorised materials:
Material Type (Metal, polymer, other)
Material Family (Aluminium alloy, additive materials)
Material Series (6000 series aluminum, HP materials)
Material Grade (Aluminum 6061, PA 12 Nylon)
You can then assign a material to one or to all of your machines. This tells you which machines can operate with this material.
For CNC: Most materials can be used on all machine groups, so use the “All machine groups” button
For AM: The linked materials and machines may be a little more specific, so when adding a material, you can assign it only to the relevant machines. This would mean that in the Quotation Forms, only your assigned materials will show up as options for selection when adding a machine.
How to Edit the Material Details Displayed on the Web Application
All details displayed in the material pop-up on the web application are edited per material in the ‘Material Details’ sidebar.
Here, as described above, you can enter a thumbnail description and additional translations. You can also pull descriptions from our database. Additionally, you can add custom properties for the material by pressing the 'ADD MATERIAL PROPERTY' button:
Enter up to 3 image examples by dragging and dropping a picture or pressing the 'UPLOAD FILE' button as below:
To add a downloadable datasheet for the material, navigate to the bottom of the 'Material Details' pop-up and add a datasheet:
How to edit Material Properties
If you select the material series in the Production Parameters list, you will find the material series sidebar. Here you can edit information about the material series to be used within pricing scripts. Therefore, if you get a new material price or other information, you can edit it here and automatically feed the information into the pricing scripts. The information you can edit is:
Cost per KG
Milling feed rate (CNC)
Turning cutting speed (CNC)
Turning feed for roughing part (CNC)
Turning feed for finishing part (CNC)
Custom fields 1-5 (ALL)
Within the custom fields, you can define any parameter you would like about the material series, and use that information in pricing workers. The article on how to do that is here: How to Use Material Series Data
Legacy Materials
In our new implementation, all new materials must be linked to the ‘closest’ material from our database. If you had previously linked materials, these will be automatically mapped to the new database structure.
Unlinked materials will appear in the “Legacy Custom” column. You cannot assign costs or cost per KG to these materials until they are linked. Otherwise, these materials will work in the same way as linked materials.
To link a material to our database, press the “Material Database” button in the sidebar. Then you will be prompted to the database of materials again and can link this material accordingly.