[squidpro]

Hey guys I'm new here and we just recently bought a torchmate 4x4. I would call torchmate but I either go to school or work and i dont get home until after they close. So I have got a few questions to ask, so I figured this would be a good place to start.

Can I use Autocad instead of torchmate cad? Do any of you guys use Auto cad on the torchmate system?

I have been having some troubles with getting some pieces to make certain cuts first. Is there any way to change that?

Also is there a way that I can make the plasma cut on the line, or to one side or the other?
Thanks in advance!

[jmsrbrt]

There's a discussion group on Yahoo that I moderate, you should join. As for your questions, any CAD type program will work. I myself use Turbo Cad to draw, my wife uses Corel. The TM cad system is especially useful for adding lead-in's and out's, otherwise in the other CAD programs, you have to add all of them yourself.

I can't speak for other CAD programs in making certain cuts first, but I have noticed in Turbo Cad, the first line I draw is the first one (usually) that cuts. In the TM Cad program however, you can pick and choose your cut sequence. And of course female cuts come first, male second.

With the TM Cad program, you can tell the plasma cutter to cut on the line (online), or on either side of the line (male and female). I can't help you here because once I draw something in Corel and convert it to G Code, the plasma machine cuts on the line drawn. I'd have to go in and manually figure my offset and change my Code. Maybe someone else will chime in here. Good luck. Bob.

[PHSS]

I am not sure if this is helpful but here goes, You can import any DXF file and it will cut it, albeit, it will cut it exactly on the line, so if exact size is an issue add about 1/8" all the way around to compensate for the kerf of the plasma. The other problem you will have is it will rarely cut anything correctly in the sense, if you were cutting out a square with a hole in the center for example, it sometimes cuts out the hole first then the square but often it will cut the square first then the hole, which is not good as the square is cut and drops down below the table and the hole cannot be cut. There are two workarounds you can deal with that, the first, create your drawing as you see fit using layers, assign the holes to layer one, then the square to layer two, turn off the square layer, save the file as cut one, and then turn off that layer and turn on the square layer, turn off the circle layer and save as cut two. Then import cut one file first, cut the circles, then import and cut the rectangle. This is the long way to do it, the easier way I have done in the past was to turn the cut off run the file and let it run without cutting through the operations I don't want to cut until I get to the one I do, turn on cut, cut it and then backtrack through the file till the part is cut. Annoying but at least it only needs me to make one file, the next better option is to get the torchmate software to work. I found it was to temperamental and annoying to work as well only good for basic shapes I was importing turbocad drawings and trying to get the toolpaths to work properly and got very frustrated and decided to ditch both software and went to the best option, get Rhino 4.0 and rhinocam, lots of money but I would never go back. I can draw in rhino (far superior to all other cad programs and I have used them all, Turbocad is my second fav) then tool it right in rhino using Rhinocam. I teach metalwork in a highschool and we have a torchmate and I simply created knowledge bases (rhinocams fancy word for templates) for each type of metal and feedrate for ease of use for teenagers and once that was done I can simply import a knowledge base such as 3/16 mild steel outside cut and all I have to do is choose the lines to cut, it automatically sets the lead ins, cut order feedrates etc and simply post the gcode and I am good to go. I can draw and tool average things t he plasma can do from simple shapes to fancy art in about 10 minute start-to-part. And I love the import bitmap option rhino has for tracing logos and pictures. That is my two cents. But you will love Rhino and Rhinocam, better than Mastercam in my opinion.