cnc plasma, help!

agrifabs · Post by **agrifabs** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 7:41 pm

Evening all, I am a novice when it cones to Cnc plasma cutters. I've got sheetcam and mach3, I've done a basic drawing in sheetcam and followed the tutorial, I've then put it into mach 3, when I start the cut it dies all the movements but doesn't activate the plasma cutter - the relay on the breakout board operates the plasma manually with no problem, how do I make sheetcam or mach3 know when to turn the plasma on and off?

regards

chris

WyoGreen · Post by **WyoGreen** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:33 pm

Generally, the post you use in Sheetcam is tailored to your controller. I use a CandCNC controller with Mach3, and my posts are written by CandCNC. There are dozens of posts in sheetcam to operate a wide range of equipment. You might let us know what equipment you are using and we may be able to give you a better idea of what to use. Are you using the Mach3 post in Sheetcam to process your design to g-code?

Steve

Post by **Les Newell** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:38 pm

Go to Options->machine->post processor and select the 'Mach3 plasma' post processor. This is the simplest plasma post and is the best one to use when you are first setting a machine up.

In Mach3 set up your plasma relay on the 'spindle clockwise' output. In the spindle setup make sure the spindle on and spindle off delays are set to 0.

agrifabs · Post by **agrifabs** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 12:15 pm

thanks both, that worked a treat! looks like im experimenting for the rest of the afternoon!

agrifabs · Post by **agrifabs** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 12:32 pm

just another quick question, ive designed a a small logo in autocad, it has text in it, i save it to a .dxf file and import it into sheetcam, the square box appears in sheetcam but the text doesnt? why is that?

regards

chris

PK · Post by PK » Sat Jan 10, 2015 12:38 pm

You probably need to explode text. Not sure of the exact command name for Autocad. Maybe "explodetext".

HTH
Paul

art · Post by **art** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 1:45 pm

Chris,
In order for this to work, the text has to be "exploded". When I used
autocad, it could be done using express tools. Not sure if that still
exists or not. Presently, I use "Stickfont" V1.1 which is a freeware
program to generate my text which can then be saved as either a g-code or
dxf file. It can be found here: <http://ncplot.com/stickfont/stickfont.htm>
There is also a V2, but it is not freeware.

HTH
Art
Country Bubba

At 07:32 AM 1/10/2015, you wrote:

just another quick question, ive designed a a small logo in autocad, it
has text in it, i save it to a .dxf file and import it into sheetcam, the
square box appears in sheetcam but the text doesnt? why is that?

regards

chris

agrifabs · Post by **agrifabs** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:09 pm

well ive managed to get the text showing up in sheetcam, but when i post the gcode and put it into mach3 there is only about 5 lines of code, no drawing shows up in mach3
anyone know why?

PK · Post by PK » Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:47 pm

In SheetCam, do you have green cut paths for the text? Either outside, inside or on the lines representing the text?

Paul

agrifabs · Post by **agrifabs** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 7:41 pm

px, i think so mate, ive put a screen shot on here for you to see, please bare with me as im a novice when it comes to sheetcam and cnc plasma, ive only just learnt for to use router with cambam and mach3

PK · Post by PK » Sat Jan 10, 2015 8:55 pm

Yep - Chris, it looks like you have paths. Do you have a license for SheetCam? I think it will only output so many lines of Gcode without a license. Could you attach the gcode file?

Paul

agrifabs · Post by **agrifabs** » Sun Jan 11, 2015 8:14 pm

hi, sorry been in work all day, yes its a licensed copy, havent got a clue how to do the gcode thing, ill keep on playing with it tomorow, see what i can come up with, its all on another computer thats up on my farm.

regards

chris

SeanP · Post by **SeanP** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:59 am

Have a look at the videos on here, they are very good to get you going.
https://www.youtube.com/user/arclightdynamics/videos