which software do I purchase

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Andy-Lisa
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2020 5:12 pm

which software do I purchase

Post by Andy-Lisa »

Hello....I am going to purchase SheetCam for use on my Crossfire Pro (due to ship in April). We will not use Mach 3 as it comes with its own software called Firecontrol. soooo....I see under purchase I have several options... SheetCam TNG for 110.00 which I think is the only download I will need correct?
GunTruck1776
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:09 am

Re: which software do I purchase

Post by GunTruck1776 »

:lol:
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robertspark
Posts: 257
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 12:11 am

Re: which software do I purchase

Post by robertspark »

Yes
Andy-Lisa
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2020 5:12 pm

Re: which software do I purchase

Post by Andy-Lisa »

Awesome, I will buy it....next question...can I buy it in advance and then download it after we get a computer for the design part? Does it benefit me to download it now and play with designs? I will use Inkscape and then import into sheetcam….then after it does its process it will go to Langmuir Firecontrol which replaces Mach 3...(gosh i'm new and I actually think I understand what I just wrote..LOL) thank you in advance, Lisa
robertspark
Posts: 257
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 12:11 am

Re: which software do I purchase

Post by robertspark »

You can buy the licence at any time....

However, I'd suggest you download and install it now without a licence as it will output up to ~180 line of gcode which will allow you to test and try it out + learn how to use it.

It gives you a chance to check that it meets your needs.

note, I am biased as I've used it for a number of years, and whilst I have dabbled with other CAM software (autocad inventor HSM (similar to fusion 360), EstlCAM, and Vectrix Aspire), sheetcam always seems to be the easiest to use especially for plasma and 2.5D.

I have also taken the time to write my own post processors too and customise existing post processors so that I can learn lua (its actually quite straight forward.... but maybe that is because I have not done enough of it or the complex stuff and just used it for sheetcam post processors....).

There are two versions to sheetcam.... a stable release and the development release..... I use the development release.... occasionally a bug may be apparent in the development release.... but that is the point of the development release where as the stable release lags behind the stable release and will have some of the features missing from the development release.....

https://www.sheetcam.com/downloads

I'd suggest spending an evening going through all of the youtube clips on sheetcam

etc.....

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... pMGkrnv9yI

Most of the items will go over your head at first but if you've seen it it may prompt something if you have an issue or want to know something in the future because you've seen it before.

Once you have a machine defined and the post processor setup with a tooltable it then becomes a second nature in workflow....

As you seem new to plasma I'll suggest you have a read of this general plasma guide written not too long ago .... it is biased towards LinuxCNC but the principles of CNC + plasma cutting apply universally as do generic gcodes + mcodes G0, G1, G2, G3, M3, M5, M30 that are good to learn so that when something does not work as you think it should you can try to understand why....

http://linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/pla ... rimer.html

The machine is just a dumb animal..... it will do whatever you tell it to.... but it will ONLY do what you tell it too.... if you did not tell it to do something then it wont do it.... it is not a mind reader and it does not "guess". Learn to read gcode at least understand the commands not nesseserily be able to read the geometry


I have never used Fire Control, but it looks like a nice clean interface....http://www.langmuirsystems.com/firecontrol/guide

Sheetcam won't export directly to Fire Control (I don't THINK)..... Sheetcam has a plugin which allows it to export directly to Mach3.
You will basically save the file as a *.tap *.nc or whatever file extension Fire control will read, and then open that file from Fire Control which will load into fire control.

The *.tap / *.nc or whatever is just a text file.... with an extension... you can open it in any text editor if you wanted to open and edit it (I use Notepad++ with a gcode filter applied so it highlights whatever i want it to)..... but really if your post processor is doing what you want it to, you should not need to manually edit the gcode files.
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