Affinity Designer / Sheetcam Tutorials

I use a windows laptop in the shop to run the cutter. But I have run it with the Mac before, for about a month.

I used windows until about 5 years ago at which time I switched to Mac. Have owned a couple of cnc machines before running windows. Am I able to use Mac operating system from start to finish including cutting with crossfire pro. I have not ordered yet but thinking about ordering crossfire pro.

You can use a Mac from start to finish.

Fusion 360 works on macOS, as does firecontrol. There was big recently though that made it inoperable on Mac but I think it’s been fixed.

I however, use sheetcam and just run parallels on my Mac since they don’t have a macOS version. I hate subscription software but parallels has been working good for me. I think when renewal time comes I’ll cancel it and just run sheetcam on the shop computer.

Thanks for your information. I used to create my art work in corel draw for windows and send the file to my epilog laser for cutting. I haven’t heard of parallels. I will look it up and try to understand better.

It’s basically a program that runs bootcamp within macOS. Runs pretty well actually, you can have your whole windows OS just in a window inside macOS.

I looked at the program on YouTube. I believe I will look further into fusion 360 as it is Mac compatible. I have windows 7 on my MacBook Pro using bootcamp but I would have to re-learn windows 10. Thank you for your help.

Yeah, plenty of people are using fusion with success. I am dead set on using my Mac to design. No touchpad can compare to the multi gesture and sensitivity of the Mac stuff. If you get fed up with fusion don’t let the version of windows deter you. It’s not that different.

Keep in mind for Mac…the FireControl is often behind the updates and ifni am not mistaken the recent iOS currently is not compatable with FireControl

I am totally interested!!! Please sign me up!!!

I’ve got three videos up now, here’s the first.

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Thank you Tom for your comment.
A newbie to this process and trying to figure out what software is needed and what the function of each piece of software.
My current understanding is

  1. Design software to draw your part, and it creates DXF or SVG files (especially SVG because, these are better, more precise)
  2. Conversions software i.e. Sheet Cam. Converts DXF/SVG to G-Code
  3. Fire Control that reads G-code and operates the plasma cutter as instructed

A. Design software is Mac or Windows, as long as it creates DXF/SVG files
B. Sheet Cam is Windows
C. Fire Control is Windows

What other software options exist for Sheet Cam or is this the best and cost effective software?
Please let me know if my understanding is incorrect, or add clarification.
Thank you

You’ve got it! You’re now officially an Expert! :grinning:

SheetCam, IMO, is the best solution for the kinds of things you would do on the Plasma cutter because it’s easy and you can control literally every part of the conversion, including modifying the post processor. It’s not the lowest cost solution, but, even though I’m retired, I’ll gladly pay for the time savings I get with this tool.

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I don’t know if svg is more precise. I generally tell people I’m working with that if they are designing a lot of technical parts, they would want to use a proper CAD program, which would probably use dxf and would likely allow to 3D drawings.

What I will say, is for artwork and the occasional technical part that isn’t going to aerospace tolerances, svg is just fine and Affinity Designer and Sheetcam is the best choice when it comes to price and functionality.

Even @Fortifyfabworks who is very proficient with fusion owns a sheetcam license, I think.

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I will chip in…because I always chip in…

@GregL
welcome…and you are pretty much bang on.

The guys are bang on here…they both have great points…

I started around a year ago with CNC…I did have AutoCAD experiance for design…not 3D but full Engineering design AutoCAD experience.

I found Inkscape really easy to use…and Free…
I also still design in AutoCAD for some things as it is easier to design for me for layers and detailed tolerances
I could not grasp fusion360

Sheetcam…the cost is small…it is very easy to learn…very easy to use…provides lots of options…and the developer of that software often drops in on the forum.

there are lots of videos on social media for sheetcam and inkscape…

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For curves they are. DXF represents curves as a series of small straight line segments. If you remember your calculus classes the math behind it is to create ever smaller straight lines to approximate the curve. This is okay for a lot of things but can generate a ton of nodes and tiny direction changes that can be hard for normal PCs to handle. That’s why Fusion often locks up, fails or takes forever on many people’s machines. A good gaming laptop or PC can help due to the dedicated GPUs but it’s simply an artifact of the DXF standard which is designed to be universally implementable across software. It’s a lowest common denominator solution.

The SVG format was created well after DXF in a time when general purpose computers had become commonplace and far more capable. It represents curves as true curves but the math is far more complex than DXF and requires more powerful CPUs. The benefit is smoother paths and far fewer nodes. A bezier curve can be quite complex but defined with only a handful of nodes vs the polyline approach of DXFs with thousands of nodes.

This also means defining toolpaths for SVG files is much simpler and doesn’t require a robust GPU like you find in gaming computers.

I almost never use DXF except when sharing files with someone who can’t use SVG. When I get a DXF files I will convert it to SVG and spend time cleaning up the nodes and smoothing the curves to simplify the drawing and ultimately the toolpathing regardless of whether I’m targeting the laser, router or plasma as the machining tool. In fact I’ll often run a design on the laser using cheap MDF or even cardboard to verify a design before using the router or plasma to make the piece out if far more expensive materials like hardwoods, plastics or metal.

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