I’ve been using my crossfire for about 3 months, so I’m relatively new to plasma CNC, but I’m not new to CAD or gcode controlled CNC machines. I didn’t find Fusion 360 difficult, but I found it super tedious and lengthy to go thru all the steps from importing a 2D design to getting my gcode generated.
I design outside Fusion and previously imported SVG files into fusion. And tinkering with the Fusion 360 SVG import and playing with the scale factor to get my SVG to be the right size inside Fusion 360 was making the workflow in Fusion 360 take even longer.
So I bit the bullet and bought Sheetcam. It wish I started initially using Sheetcam rather than Fusion 360 because:
of the ease and small number of steps and clicks to go from importing a design (SVG or DXF for me) and having my gcode ready. Designing and cutting on any CNC is an iterative process, so it is so helpful to have software tooling, like Sheetcam, that allows me to do my work quickly. Fusion 360 is such an involved and complicated process, so I had to follow notes to make sure I did every step correctly, which was always a pain. Sheetcam is so simple that I can navigate it without any notes easily and quickly. And
when I import my SVG files into Sheetcam, I do not have to manually resize them because the EXACT size from my design software is reflected in Sheetcam. This is HUGE for me, given that I was not designing in Fusion 360. This alone was worth the money I paid for Sheetcam.
As others have recommended in this forum, I watched the videos from Arclight Dynamics. I think I spent max of 2 hours and I know everything I need to know to use Sheetcam and have not had any issues.
The only feature from Fusion 360 that I miss is the ability for fusion 360 to create a toolpath that avoids non-cut movements over previously cuts, to avoid the plasma tip colliding with a tip up. If someone knows how to configure this behavior in my gcode generated from Sheetcam, please let me know, thanks!
Anyway, I highly recommend Sheetcam for anyone that is designing outside Fusion 360…
You can edit Starts so that you have some control over tool paths, but the other thing you can do is modify the post processor (save it as you’re own unique version) to insert M1 codes at the end of every cutout. This way, if you’re having issues with tipups, you can pause at the end of a cutout, pull out any tip ups, and then resume cutting. After a while you’ll learn where you need to enable M1 stops and where you can let it run free.
I use both but intend on getting away from fusion one day.If you insert dxf files you wont have to scale it.If I create in inkscape and save as a dxf its imports at the right size.
One for ‘art’ or non-technical drawings:
Inkscape / Illustrator / Drawing program -> SVG -> Sheetcam
One for technical drawings:
Fusion360 for design + manufacture. Sometimes add Sheetcam for nesting parts by exporting technical dfx from F360 and import into sheetcam. I’ve still not figured out nesting in F360.
That’s the way I think about the two programs - just different use cases.
I find SheetCam’s nesting feature too restrictive because it completes all the operations for each part before doing the same sequence of operations on the next part.
I import my single part (either from DXF or SVG) into Inkscape, assign the pertinent objects (holes, inside cuts, outline cuts) into distinctly colored layers and then use duplicate the objects as a group and offset to build an array of like components. Then, when I import into SheetCam, it’s easy to define operations for each ‘color’ so ALL the holes get ‘drilled’ first, then ALL the cutouts (with their respective tipups), then finally the major outline of each part is cut, again allowing easily avoiding rapids over already cut parts.
Not to say other ways are wrong, it’s just this is what works for me.
Only if they’re copies, not duplicates in your nest. The way SheetCam deals with nested duplicates is that the operations are applied to the ‘base’ part and then literally duplicated for each nested instance.