Just bought Practical Plasma table, which software to use?

[Killerdub]

Just bought my first cnc plasma table. Its a practical cnc 5x10. It currently uses wincnc 2.1 with either artcam or bobcad software. I find that the artcam is geared more towards the cnc router rather than plasma and the bob cad is a little to advanced for my needs. Is there a more user friendly program for plasma? I will be cutting everything from basic shapes to art. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks Mark.

[Mike 1948]

Just bought my first cnc plasma table. Its a practical cnc 5x10. It currently uses wincnc 2.1 with either artcam or bobcad software. I find that the artcam is geared more towards the cnc router rather than plasma and the bob cad is a little to advanced for my needs. Is there a more user friendly program for plasma? I will be cutting everything from basic shapes to art. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks Mark.

Give a look at Sheetcam, its very easy to learn. It imports your DXF files, sets up for plasma, generates G code. I'm not sure how it is for the post processor for wincnc. You can down a free trial and give it a shot.
As for creating designs you might look at Vectrics products for vector generation, they also have trial versions.

Good Luck
Mike

[Torchhead]

SheetCAM has a WINCNC post but it won't work with the THC they sold. The THC is a standalone and there are virtually no users that I have heard from that could ever make it work.

You can replace the WINCNC hardware and software with MACH3 and our MP3000-DTHC and we have an adapter that will let you continue to use the motors and power supply.

The Vector 2D cut is good. For FREE you can download Inkscape and import most vector file formats and export in SVG. The latest version of SheetCAM TNG imports SVG's from Inkscape correctly. There are tons of sources for nice clean vector (not bitmap) clipart that you can edit, modify and combine with text and other shapes. Check www.Vectorart.com. There are also sources for plasma art in DXF format but the range of designs are somewhat limited and the price for some is pretty steep.

ArtCAM is a very pricey software (about $7000 per copy) for relief carving and sign work in wood. It's also real hard to learn. Practical was notorious for giving customers pirated copies of expensive software to sweeten the deal. BobCAD is a CAD program that is hard to use for decorative cutting in plasma.

TOM caudle
www.CandCNC.com
Totally Modular CNC Electronics.

[binfordw]

I have sheetcam and Bobcad/cam V23, the sheetcam has been excellent for my plasma table. I was a little leery of having to learn yet another software, but sheetcam is pretty simple to use and plain works. Bobcad/cam is nice too and I like it, but I wouldn't want to be using it for plasma cutting.

[Killerdub]

Thanks for all the responses. I think I will be going with sheetcam and Tom's MACH3 and MP3000-DTHC setup. What do you guys think? Here are some pics of my table, I just built the water bed myself out of aluminum.