Many of our customers (and a few prospective customers) already know… running sheetcam unlicensed (demo mode) is fully functional with just two exceptions:
- the five licensed plugins are Disabled, those are: RotaryPlasma, Laser, Drag Knife, Wire Cutter, and Vcarve Bit.
- gcode production from any post processor is limited to approx. 180 lines of code.
Despite this somewhat general awareness, Sheetcam Customer Support is frequently asked about installing and using sheetcam on more than one computer in terms of licensing requirements, that is, does each installation of sheetcam require a license ? It’s a great question… The answer is, it depends… it depends on if you must generate 100% complete gcode files on more than one computer. The most common use case dictates that needing 100% complete gcode files is NOT necessary on all computers, rather it is only necessary on just ONE computer, thus that computer is ONE which must be licensed for sheetcam. You decide which computer, most people choose the computer which connects to and operates their CNC controller, in the shop.
Note: If on the other hand, you actually need to generate 100% complete gcode on more than one computer running sheetcam, then you must adhere to the license terms and conditions and purchase separate sheetcam licenses for each of those computers.
The most common two-computer use case, with ONE license, described and asked about is:
- 1st computer) using sheetcam in a comfortable, clean setting such as an office, for the purpose of CAM (toolpath) design and setup. No gcode production or the 180 line limit is fine, just to know the post processor (pp) is working. In this case, save your toolpath design as a sheetcam .JOB file, see sheetcam menu File / ‘Save job’ feature.
- 2nd computer) using sheetcam in the shop at or near the CNC controller and table, where it’s convenient to make changes to the CAM (toolpath) design, generate 100% complete gcode, and run the CNC job again in some fashion. In this case, open the .JOB file saved by the 1st computer, see sheetcam menu File / ‘Open job’. Open the file from a thumb drive, a network shared folder, downloaded from email, or downloaded from a cloud folder (google drive).
This is an efficient and inexpensive method to use sheetcam on more than one computer, the way it was intended to be used in the first place. For this reason, all of the sheetcam components that you will need to edit the .JOB file are contained in the .JOB file, such as complete toolpath design including full toolset (tool definitions) and path rules.
Other use cases may involve more than two computers, but again where only ONE or just a FEW computers must generate 100% complete gcode. The same solution can be extrapolated to those use cases, such as a classroom. Purchase a sheetcam license for each computer install of sheetcam that will need to generate 100% complete gcode. It’s that simple.