New to plasma in South Alabama

Hello all,

Greeting from Fairhope, Alabama. I just ordered a CrossFire Pro with the Razorcut 45 and THC. I’ve built and operated a few CNC routers and a Co2 laser, but this is my first foray into plasma cutting. I don’t anticipate any problems, I am familiar with G-code and vectors so that’s all good. I do most of my design work with V-Carve Pro so it looks like I just need sheetCAM and I’ll be good to go. Looks like a 2 month wait time. I probably could have built my own table, but the firecontrol software and THC looks like it is well supported and works. So, that was really the deciding factor on pre built vs homemade. I figure if I ever want to go bigger then I’ll use this machine to make the parts for a bigger one.
Cheers!

Edited to add: I have a 80 gallon Campbell Hausfeld air compressor with a Ingersoll Rand 15CFM refrigerated dryer. Which should be plenty to run the cutter.

Also edited to ask: Where do people get their steel? I am mostly a woodworker and have a great hardwood dealer local and a couple of online places for specialty stuff, but will the big steel suppliers sell to the little guy? Most of my metal work has been repairs or built of out of scrap and big box store metal, which is stupid expensive.

Weclome to the forum!

I’m not 100% positive, but I think a VCarve post processor for FireControl wouldn’t be too difficult to put together. I’d have to research how to set the Pierce Parameters, but might be able to fudge that somehow.

On the other hand, SheetCam is really easy to use and has everything you need…

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On the other hand, SheetCam is really easy to use and has everything you need…

I have, in the past, and probably will again, re-invent the wheel, but in this case, I think I will rely on tried and true methods until I understand what I would want to change.

Good approach. I use VCarve Pro for my CNC Router but although I could mess with the PP, it’s not really designed to allow the parameters we need (like delay, pierce height, etc). It’d be a kludge. There’s no reason not to just export to SVG and use Sheetcam for the CAM process. Bet you’d spend more than the $140 in time, effort and aggravation trying to get VCarve to create suitable GCode for the Crossfire.

Well, I was going to tell @ImprobableConstruct that he made a wise decision, but now you’ve turned this into a challenge! :smiling_imp:

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I know it can be done, but I like to make “things” and getting deep into the weeds of programing isn’t where I want to spend my time at this point. My last “big” project involved building and programing an arduino based circuit board. I learned a lot but it took months to get it all figured out and working the way I wanted. SheetCAM is forsure the way i am going to go.

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