Sell me on sheetcam

So I’m getting a little tired of fusion 360. I’ve seen a few of ya’ll are using sheetcam.

Any pros or cons to the program?
Can I still design parts?

F360 is the only cad/cam program I’ve ever used so I’m not too literate in things cnc

By chance have you ever used in vinyl cutting programs? or Inkscape?

No on the vinyl cutting programs. Inkscape, I have, but only as far as opening an image, tracing into a path and exporting it as a dxf

To me sheetcam was easy to learn I looked at fusion but I already knew how to get the drawing in my vinyl program so I only had to learn sheetcam and there are allot of good videos on youtube. Start off with this one and see what you think, I believe they have allot of good videos on their channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJ7QNc6wG4&t=706s

There are allot of people on here that can help also once you decide which way you are going to go.

Good luck

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Sheetcam is only used for toolpathing (you can nest parts too). There are no design tools in it so you’ll need another application to do the design work.

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In my limited and growing experience with sheetcam, I like the fact that it is NOT web based storage or cloud storage of your files. I like that you can contact/email the developer and get a response directly from him in a timely fashion.

There are some not so well known features that by reading the manual or watching videos you can figure out. Like recently I learned how to rotate a nested file/drawing in the program which I didn’t think was possible.

I started out using Fusion which in my opinion is a feature rich program, but for what I do, not necessary. I like the keep it simple solution.

In addition I find that Inkscape is a great program for designing what you’ll cut out.

In my order of concept to design to manufacture is;

Inkscape
Sheetcam
Mach3

Usually with Inkscape I can get some pretty good results.

Hope this helped.

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Just ran across qcad and qcam. This look interesting as well. I’m going to play with some free trials today and see what I like

I can export a file designed in inkscape, import it to sheetcam, run tool path, post it, load into mach 3, zero my machine and hit cycle start, faster than I can open fusion on a good computer. Fusion is a good program, but for 2d, overkill. It’s like opening a walnut with a sledgehammer…

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but overkill is manly!!

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For tool path generation sheetcam is hard to beat, it just flat out works. If you try it you will be amazed how much simpler it is to work with.

As Dicky said F360 is a great program but it is way too much for plasma, Qcad is probably a better alternative if you are going to be cutting parts that need to be precise.

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You can be precise with inkscape too, just takes a little creativity using guidelines and snap. I’ve designed dozens of things I would normally use cad constraints but didn’t feel like firing up a cad software.

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Good point Dicky, I’ve watched some tutorials on using inkscape with the grids but haven’t needed to do it yet. I’ve been making welcome signs and other art stuff.

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I use Tinkercad (free) Download as a SVG then put in Sheetcam Works perfect!
Hope this helps.

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is there an alternative to sheetcam for MacOS users? I already know TinkerCAD from 3DPing and would prefer to avoid F360.

Get a windows license and use boot camp if you have an intel mac.

I run a m1pro and pay for parallels to run sheetcam. Worth every penny. I do other stuff, my work software is windows based, but parallels is amazing.

And holy thread revival Batman.

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Sheetcam is awesome and is in my opinion bulletproof. Its worked flawlessly for me and the creator is fast to respond with any questions. Once you use it you will feel embarrassed that you asked, lol…

Yeah I searched first rather than creating a new thread for the same topic.

I have owned parallels in the past. I don’t want to give Microshaft anymore money for whimdose. I found a solution in another thread last night. Crossover. I haven’t tested much but it works great so far. I purchased Sheetcam last night too.

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I’m with everyone else. Sheetcam is such a great program I didn’t wait for the free trial to expire before paying for the license…Don’t regret it one bit.
F360 is an awesome program but overkill and way too much to learn for the majority of us who only deal in 2D. I use Lightburn and inkscape to design, save as dxf, send to sheetcam. So simple and fast. I’m now going to look at this tinkercad

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Very good choice, I use Lightburn a lot as it’s one of the most intuitive drawing tools I’ve ever used.

I agree. A few minor drawbacks but in general it does very well for me. Lightburn and then Sheetcam have made this process so efficient and enjoyable

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