sheetcam.com

JHOP · Joined: 25 Jan 2010 Posts: 1

IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE THAT I CAN PAY TO TALK ME AND A PARTNER THROUGH THE PROCESS OF START TO FINISH IN IMPORTING A DXF DRAWING,CHECKING THE VARIOUS STEPS IN STARTING POINTS, START AND STOP POINTS, HOW TO ELIMINATE AND OR MANAGE MODIFYING # OF NODES ON POLYLINES-IN GENERAL HOW TO END WITH CUTTING A USABEL PRODUCT.THANKS FOR ANY HELP YOU CAN GIVE TO TWO NEWBIES--JHOP@AOL.COM

Les Newell · Site Admin Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 391

There are some good video tutorials here http://www.cncinformation.com/sheetcam-videos/. They may help.

Big Daddy · Joined: 21 Apr 2010 Posts: 5

Yeah, we've been watching those. It seems the version Ivan is using in his videos is a different version than we have. We are using the 2.0.11 ver. right now.

We made some progress last night but still having some issues.

Les Newell · Site Admin Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 391

Yes, it is an older version but most things work pretty much the same. Have you looked at the tutorials in Help->tutorials?

Big Daddy · Joined: 21 Apr 2010 Posts: 5

Yeah, I discovered a jump between videos. Ivan starts one of the videos with a jet that already has the cut path established. He didn't do that step in the previous video.

The tutorials reference an icon to do that process...but it doesn't look the same in the newer version. Took me forever to find it but I finally found it.

After generating the process I did a dry run with the table and it seemed to do fine but I noticed there are no commands to turn the plasma on or off during the job. I've double checked my post processor settings and have even changed them to a couple others to see if it might generate the code differently to no avail. (It's a Mach3 processor and I see that sheetcam comes with 5 or 6 Mach3 options)

Hope I'm making sense with this.

Les Newell · Site Admin Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 391

Make sure you use a plasma post. If you use a milling post you will get the results you are seeing. Try the Mach3 plasma post.

Big Daddy · Joined: 21 Apr 2010 Posts: 5

Well, I've tried all three.

Mach3
Mach3 plasma
Mach3 plasma pause

All three give me the same code results of not turning the plasma on and off.

Thoughts?

Big Daddy · Joined: 21 Apr 2010 Posts: 5

I'm sorry Les, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I can see in the code it inputs the "M03" and "M05" again on all three post options. I've even tried a totally different DXF file and get the same results with each one.

Big Daddy · Joined: 21 Apr 2010 Posts: 5

Sorry Les to be such a newbie on this. I just ran the same DXF file through LazyCam and looked at the G-Code it generated. I was under the assumption that the "M Codes" were only for milling so that was why it was throwing me. It produced the exact same codes, it just labeled them a little more with (Plasma on) and (Plasma off) after the codes.

Thanks for your patience.