Is there a way to cut simple shapes like a circle or a square right out of Mach3 without having to go to fusion360 first?
The are wizards people build that can be used with Mach3, It comes with a bunch. There are a couple plasma specific I downloaded all written by the same guy I don’t think one came supplied. The way it was written though it always wants a “Z” axis. I someone was reasonable with coding it would be fairly simple to make a Mach3 wizard specific to our tables.
A thread on the plasma wizard
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=21395.0
The plasma shapes wizard download here
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=21395.0;attach=30149
The wizards are all in this folder
“C:\Mach3\Addons”
To remove clutter you can delete extra wizards or move then to another folder to archive
Unzip the wizard into the mach folder listed above. The wizard name will be the name of the folder
Select square, Burn hole, circle or triangle.
for each setting you must hit enter. I think for top material function you must select none/
Good luck
Rich
Like I said maybe someone with some coding talent can make us something better?
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I tried it tonight and it works as advertised. If you want to burn a quick square, rectangle, triangle, circular (oval shape0 or burn a round hole. Launches from inside Mach3 and exports directly into Mach3 as the loaded file.
Set your home location, jog follow and and redraw as required.
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That is pretty slick. It also saves that created file in the “GCode” folder, kinda handy if you use it frequently. Thanks for sharing Rich!
Great post! Thanks for sharing.
The thanks really goes to Terry Parker who created the tool.
Once I discovered the wizards I was like this would be great if some did one for Plasma so I did a little searching and found this.
With that said I sincerely say thank you to “Terry Parker” for creating the wizard and also apologize for saying I want something better. This tool works and does what it says and is very handy.
Now if someone were to build another plasma specific tool looking at the other prepackaged wizards thinks like the bolts circle wizard and such.
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I was able to try the wizard today in the shop and it worked great, this is just awesome, this table is making my (shop) life sooo much easier.
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Agreed, I have people give me scrap some old shelves type stuff. I can just set it in the table look at it with a tape measure and optimize my cut to clean the scrap up into more usable and tidy stock to have on hand.
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Is this wizard no longer available? Cant seem to any to add
Link Test, something seems amiss with there site.
http://forum.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,21395.0.html
This link seems to work getting you to the thread. Then you want to download the attachment from the third post it is by BR549 the download is “Plasma Shapes Wizard2” the first post has the older download for the original version but move two post down and get version2.
http://forum.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,21395.0.html
Ya it seams like some think is wrong with their site but the link I just posted is still taking me to the right thread.
As for all the wizards build into Mach 3 I just copied them into an archive folder so they wouldn’t clutter up mach 3 like yours shows. If you get hung up I can email you the zip file.
The wizards are all in mach 3 here.
C:\Mach3\Addons
I created a folder called archive inside that folder and moved all the wizards currently in Addons folder into archive. The you put the Plasma shapes folder inside Addons with the shapes contents inside the folder. Then close and reopen Mach 3. Then only the Plasma shapes with show up.
You should have these three files and this bitmap folder inside your Plasma shapes folder. It is telling you it doesn’t see the “.set” file.
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When you extracted the files from the zip it was probably defaulting to a recursive extract. Just select those files, Ctrl+X to cut them and then go up a level and paste (Ctrl+V) them in the parent folder. You can delete the extra folder too.
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Good Deal one thing when using this if I recall you need to hit enter after changing a value but it does work well. I also used it for small test cuts 1/2" x 1" rectangles, small circles.
You can just slide the piece over and burn another hole or square after either adjusting current or speed by using the feed rate override.
But it is great for just cutting a maximum rectangle or square from a piece of scrap to salvage the material for use later.
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