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Remaining material on a roll calculator

RobbyMac

New Member
Not sure if anyone else has developed anything like this, but thought I'd share. This is an excel calc for determining the remaining amount of material on a roll.
HOW TO USE:
1) Choose a material from the drop down menu under CHOOSE MATERIAL.
2) (if needed) enter the Inside Diameter of the material (or O.D. of the Core). Most cores are 3.5" but can vary which affects the calc.
3) Measure the thickness of remaining material (from core, to outter edge of roll of material)
It will give you remaining inches, feet and yards (sorry Europe ;) )

HOW TO ADD/CHANGE MATERIALS:
Materials and their individual sheet thicknesses are listed on the right side. You can add your own, which then will be listed in the dropdown menu. Name the material on the left, and thickness of othe material on the right. To determine this, I usually measure .1" thickness of material and count how many layers are in that .1". simply calculate .1 / # of layers to get the material thickness.

Now, I realize that this can be a bit of trouble to enter info... The dropdown menu and predetermined thicknesses help speed up the process. It can be a handy tool. After developing this, I came up with a measuring tool (small scale of sorts, printed on pvc using our gerber edge) which we now use in our shop quite a bit. The scale is based on a 3.5" core, so if the actual core diameter varies on a given roll, then our measuring tool can be off slightly (+ or - a yard over 25yd or so depending on the core).

Disclaimer: Use it at your own risk. I don't want to get blamed for a miscalc or whatever. Test it out for yourself... Especially on materials you're measuring for the first time. It's just a tool. If a material thickness seems off, or isn't included, simply add/replace your own. The excel file does not use any scripts or vb or anything. Just straight forward calcs.
 

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  • Material calculator.xls
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    matcalc.jpg
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  • scale.jpg
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Malkin

New Member
I made a similar tool that measured the outer diameter. It was quite accurate except for the occasional inconsistent core size.
 

Sticky Signs

New Member
My printer keeps track of that for me.
I did learn a trick once a long time ago from a very intelligent older chinese fellow that I used to work with. It had something to do with Pi (3.14 or whatever...). He showed me that you can get a rough calculation of how much media is left on a roll by counting the wraps on the core. Every wrap is equal to about one foot. It's a bit of a pain depending on media but it does work in a pinch.
 

RobbyMac

New Member
I have noticed that a rough guesstimate of 12" per wrap is 'good enough' in most cases. Obviously, the more full the roll, the more material you have (more than 12" per wrap).
The tool is not so much for printers as it is for the guy whos laminating... or and installer who needs material to finish a full coverage job, or cutting on a plotter that doesn't check media size, etc..
It's just another tool in our 'arsenal' that can shave a few seconds, or table space out of the average day.
I am not suprised others have come up with their own solutions either... Just thought I'd put it out there for anyone who might be interested or hadn't tackled the problem.
We can turn this into a thread for all calcs & tips out there!
 

sticker_monkeys

New Member
This is a great idea... our rolls are fairly low when I got to calculate so I have already figured out the foot to a lap, but this will better help us estimate our supply for new jobs and track inventory. Thanks for sharing! :)
 
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