This is both one of the best, and one of the worst aspects of Camworks. Once you have your most-used strategies and tooling set up, it's a time saver. Unfortunately, it comes bare-bones, and it takes some time to get it populated with data. In my case, I'm a dedicated programmer (don't run parts anymore), so I've had time often enough over the years to spend the time it takes to manually enter stuff. However, if you're one of those that has to program and get stuff out the door, teaching "on-the-fly" is a better way. You speak of this method, so I assume you know how to do it (it's not hard). What I would recommend is to decide what you want for an overall structure beforehand. What I mean by that is, do you want your strategies to specifically call out tools and tool paths, or do you want it to calculate (I prefer to former). What I mean by that is, in the case of pocketing, do you want to have the system pick different tools/depths of cut depending upon width/depth of pocket, or do you want to just choose your own, based on your decision? Another thing I'd recommend to keep entries down to a minimum, is map (for example) all pocket shapes as rectangular pocket. That way, instead of having separate strategies for all shapes of pockets, it will redirect all pocket shapes to the rectangular pocket strategies. Maybe you want round pockets processed differently. Maybe obround pockets. Bottom line is, map as many strategies to point to similar ones to minimize your number of database entries.
No matter what you do, it's going to take time. As time goes on, you will be able to take advantage of the time-saving aspects of the TechDB, and life will be easier. There will be some pain starting off, though. Do take advantage of the fact that you can have different tools/paths/etc. for different material types.That way, you'll automatically get (for example) 3 flute end mills for aluminum and 4 or 5 flute end mills for steel.
