New to plasma cutting

[Chrescht]

Hi there,
I am new to plasma cutting and just modified/converted my cnc router to a plasma cutter.

I use a floating Z for touch off and a Proma THC with the AXBB Controller.

For milling i always generated my G-Code with Estlcam.
Now for the plasma, if my understanding is correct, you always need to touch off the Stock material to get the correct height before starting the cut sequence.
If you use a Software like “Sheetcam” eg., It puts that touch off sequence in the gcode in front off all cut?
As i do not have "Sheetcam", now i have to implement this by hand into my gcode?
As everybody does, i try to keep the investment as low as possible and so my question is, iIs there any other software who does this? Fusion360 maybe?
All the Torch anti dive, corner , etc., are they done automatically during cut when i switch them on in UCCNC plasma?
Many thanks

Christian

[kawarider]

Christiaan. Did you read previous post of Robert? Very helpfull.
Sheetcam is best value for money. Don t hesitate to buy that if you want to do some cutting. They heve their own forum. Take a look there too.
In sheetcams pp you can fill in to touch before every start or the start after cutting X mm.
Very easy
Good luck

[Chrescht]

Hi Kawarider,
thanks for your reply.

Yes i checked out Roberts post to get information about the different problems which i will encounter during plasma cutting. Very helpful indeed.
The only problem i have is that i could not find out how the majority of the users do it. I tried to find infromations about their workflow.
Do they touch off every mm rather than touching off before every cut? Or maybe not at all? Pros, Cons.
A lot of the posts i read inhere or in other forums are quite old.
Maybe there was an evolution?.
I am quite shure that Sheetcam is worth the money but as i could not find all the information above i hesitate on buying it.

Greetings

Christian

[kawarider]

Christian, touch is to determin where te plate is. Is your table exactly flat then you don t have to touch off ad all. This is when your table bed is new. After a few cuts the table is not flat anymore. A few mm diff is normal. Then the touch off with a floating head or ohmic sensor is used. I use it before every start. It costs time, that s all.

[Robertspark]

Do they touch off every mm rather than touching off before every cut? Or maybe not at all? Pros, Cons.
....

You touch off at the start of every cut (normally), this sets the material zero.

When the torch starts cutting, then the torch height control will correct as the material height changes.

I am quite shure that Sheetcam is worth the money but as i could not find all the information above i hesitate on buying it.
...

Sheetcam is available for download for free and to try out.

It is also free for 180 lines of code so as long as you do small things then it will be fine and you can test it out and get use to it (draw some rectangles, squares and circles and get use to it).

https://www.sheetcam.com/downloads

Look at all the youtube videos as there are a load on plasma cutting.

https://www.google.com/search?q=plasma+ ... 20&bih=599

[Chrescht]

Thanks Robert,Kawarider,

i just purchased Sheetcam.
Greetings

Christian