Hello to you all, I am a new Langmuir Customer, just ordered the Crossfire XR. One of the main reasons I decided on Langmuir is because of this incredible forum. I owned an aerospace CNC machine shop for many years, and hired many younger guys who were up on all the new technologies. Since I’m older’n dirt, I cut my teeth on engine lathes and Bridgeports over 50 years ago which we were able to start our machine shop with. I never became knowledgable about CNC myself since we were able to hire the top guys in our area that saw the potential in our small shop when we expanded. At 76 years old now, I have decided I missed out, and hopefully you all can help this old dog learn some new tricks. I still do a lot of welding, building quite heavy duty welding and fixture tables (up to 3,500 lbs. each) as a hobby. This is a “just for fun” venture, as is this purchase, as are my welding table designs. I truly appreciate you all who have contributed your experienced on the Crossfire, Crossfire Pro, and the new XR. It made my decision a lot easier. Thanks. Terry
Welcome, Terry
There are a bunch of super-smart young bucks here, along with a collection of old guys who started just like you. My Bridgeport is a 1957 model, and my Cincinnati 12.5 is from 1955.
I still use them almost every day. Just let us know if you need anything.
We even have a plasma shop owner who is a plasma savant.
Bigdaddy2166
Thank you kindly. I lost track years ago of the number of Bridgeports and Lagun milling machines I’ve owned. Same on Hardinge lathes, etc. What an amazing thing it was for an upside down kid just home from Viet Nam in the late '60’s to get into, then be able to find a new career with. I haven’t been that enthused for a long time, but that feeling came back when I ordered the XR. Thanks. Terry
Welcome to the forum Terry! And, congratulations on what sounds like a very successful career.
Thanks Brett. Looking forward to this new XR adventure and meeting as many of you as possible as time moves along. That was the best part of owning our great little company, the people we hired and our customers. I’ve missed that. We always ran it like an old fashioned Mom and Pop shop, on a very personal level. I looked forward to greeting every man and woman that worked for us, every morning.
@TLD1948 welcome to the forum!!
Thanks for your service! My dad is a two tour vet of Viet Nam one in 68 and the other in 73-74.
We went on a tour of Vietnam with my dad last fall. Such a great experience!
Looking forward to seeing what you create with your new toy!
Thank you.
Welcome to the forum!
Lots of us are past the 60 year mark. I am working my way to 68. I am getting a taste of the aging process. “It is not for sissies” as they say.
As for this community, they really got me on track and now I try to give back. Don’t get overwhelmed, or if you get overwhelmed, understand that it will pass.
I had trouble with the terminology and all of the programs to learn. There is a minimum of two programs and possibly three or four based on your needs and desires.
A great thing about the XR is that you can literally design the entire sheet in a program, like Fusion 360, and load the sheet and cut what you want. Remove that sheet and do something else. Design more for that very same sheet and load that specific sheet again on the table and the design will know where metal is available. (Don’t know if I am describing that very well and not sure how many people do that.)
Welcome Terry!
Thanks for the encouragement, Jim. Programming anything when I was so busy way back in the machine shop was not a possibility for me, which I came to regret. I have the time to focus on just this now, and truthfully, I’m pretty pumped about getting back in the saddle. Thank goodness I’m not trying to put food on the table, get my kids through school, and raise a family now, so can really dive into this.
Are you in Lake Chelan area? I have a good buddy over there that used to be one of my machine shop competitors, a great guy. Terry
Thanks Johnny. Look forward to talking with you again. Terry
That is a good point. So often these new guys implode with the learning because they already have commitments/obligations for products and it stresses them to the point that they are totally overwhelmed.
We vacation there regularly. We have a small place on the Columbia river that we stay at. We couldn’t afford Chelan prices and taxes.
Tell you dad semper fi for me. I was there in '68-'69.
Terry, welcome to the crazy world of CNC plasma. I’m one of the retired folks here, also just learning the ways of CNC. Getting much better at it for sure. My learning curve wasn’t as bad as a lot of folks as I was an IT geek before I retired. I’ve always had a thing for metal fabrication so lots of experience there al be itt not professionally. I found the most difficult part was the design part. I’m not a fan of Fusion 360 (I call it Confusion 360), I use LibreCAD for drawing, SheetCAM for the CAM part then feed that file into Firecontrol.
The neat thing is this stuff is fun!
Brad
Thanks Brad. Just ordered a step by step book on 360 for beginners. I hadn’t heard of LibrreCAD, so will look at SheetCam too Any other suggestions would be welcomed and appreciated. Terry
Pick one CAD/CAM program and stick with it.
Lots of F360 users here. Though it is a steep learning curve, it has the most capabilities.
Caveat - if all you are doing is signs off Etsy or somesuch, then Sheetcam might be the better option. F360 is best for from scratch designs and projects.
The two are not exclusive. Once you learn SheetCam to convert your designs to run on Firecontrol, then ANY CAD program can be used for design, including Fusion 360.
Hey Terry
Here is the simple break down of software that’s needed to cut parts(Disregard if you all ready know this stuff)
CAD - This would be a program you make a Sketch or Drawing in. There are many that will do this. Like anything some will seem more user friendly to you than others. At first none of them may seem user friendly.
Some can do both 2D and 3D drawings. For plasma cutting you only need 2D. There may be times you need 3D but it all depends on how far into this you want to get.
Programs that do both 2D and 3D like anything else will be have more layers of complexity.
CAM- takes the Drawing or Sketch you created in you CAD software and turns it into a file that can be cut. This file will be what is called G-code.
That G-code File is then loaded into the Plasma table and is read by the software that comes with your XR plasma table Called Fire control.
Fusion 360 is Software that has both Cad and Cam. It is free for hobbyist, with some features turned off from the paid subscription. Having both Cad and Cam has its benefits.
There are other software’s that just does Cad, then you would also need Cam software. This would require learning two programs. Even though Fusion has both Cad and Cam you still have too learn both.
Like with any software you really have to spend a lot of time to learn it before you can tell if you like it.
Just like with anything the more you use it the better off you will be. If your working with it daily you will do much better then using it every couple of weeks.
I use Fusion 360 and its a struggle for me, but I have poor short term memory so if I don’t use it daily I have problems.
One more thing about Fusion. They like to make changes to things, so they have updates all the time and I don’t think you can turn them off.
Things in drop down menus might get moved or removed. Names of things might change, and that makes it tough (at least for me)
There are tons of videos on fusion, if you watch them make sure you find one that’s fairly current as you might see a feature shown in the video that’s called something else or is in a different drop down now.
I will say this, there are some of the most time giving people on this forum you will ever meet, they all like to help. There is always help here and some guys will even call you on the phone and talk you through stuff. You cannot get better support then this forum, even if you were paying for it!
Did I mention Simple at the beginning of this post?
Good luck, its a lot of fun!
Hello again Jim, wondering if you or anyone has a recommendation on mini-computers. As always, I’m looking for something that has a history o being trouble free and works long term as it is intended to do. Thanks. Terry
I actually just did this little write up of the computer I just set up: