Hi! I am new to cnc plasma. I just got my XR put together a few days ago, and have successfully cut a few things from sheet.
I have 17 pieces of 3/8x3x120", each piece needs 6, 5/8" holes cut into them. The spacing of the holes is less than 96", so I should be good to do it on the xr. I drew the flat bar in F360, and added the holes in the proper locations. When using CAM in f360 I select the holes to cut, and finish the cam process. When I load the file into firecontrol all that I am shown is the 6 holes. I can’t wrap my head around how to set up the flat bar on the table so that the holes will be in the right locations.
I understand about squaring up off the y axis, and plan on making a jig to help in the process after I can determine where I need to place the flat bar.
Normally I would grab a mag drill, and punch some holes. however it is AR material, and I have never had good luck drilling it, even with carbide tipped cutters, at least not in that large of a quantity.
If you drew the bar in fusion 360 . When you go to do your setup. Select a corner of the bar as your zero, zero point. Then create the tool path for the holes and post process it. I would clamp a piece of scrap on the table where I want my zero to be. Then set the zero to a point on that plate. Then do a straight line cut in both x and y directions from that zero. Of the edge of the plate making an L shape jig to set your bars against. Now you should be able to set the bar in place open porgram and run it.
When you say select a corner as zero, do you mean in the cam section when you can set the xy axis indicator in a spot on the drawing? Or am i missing something else?
I got the job finished this afternoon, so much easier than drilling! I am hooked! I managed to get things indexed on the table, but ill be honest i think i got lucky. Because i was really getting frustrated and then it just fell into place. So i know there has to be a better way
In the manufacturing section when you create your setup for the part. I select the lower left corner of the part as the box point / zero point . And then select no additional material. So the parts edges align with the x an y. I have the pro. Not sure what corner you would need to select as the box point / zero to work correctly for the xr
We were planning on making some adjustable stops that would clamp to the sq. tubing on the water table in X and Y datum home positions that way at any time we could load a piece of stock or a sheet, scrap etc and it would be in the machine square to run simple profiles on stock somewhat like on our mill we zero out the DRO on back of vice and a flip down stop on edge of the vice. We run parts off XY 00 on the mill and were thinking of setting the XR up similar.