new to plasma cutting but recently got started working on my dads industrail Centroid waterjet that was converted into a plasma cutter by placing his torch on the machine.
Looking to get started and was curious about software needed to get working.
I started looking into the lightburn software because I thought I saw on youtube that it could do the 2d design work, generate the g code etc and do all I need in one program.
Its starting to look like I need to do the designing in Lightburn / inkscape and saving that as a DXF file.
Import the DXF file into CAMotics? to generate the path and g code. Save file as gcode file on usb and plug into Centroid controller / computer plasma cutter.
Is this process correct or am I mistaking how the process works.
Currently my dad runs TurboCAD, saves file as DXF then imports into Powerstation where the generates the tool path and converts to G code and saves that to a USB. I have a mac and am looking for mac compatible software to venture out and do my own projects.
@JeffK09 you understand the process correctly in both cases; some use LB end to end - design, gen gcode, and control plasma CNC; while some use LB only for design, export SVG or DXF, import into plasma specific CAM program, gen gcode, and run with another controller or mem stick.
In the case of LB end to end, LB is generating laser gcode which as you may know is very similar to plasma process, however there is likely no Torch Height Controller (THC) involved in the plasma process in this case since LB/laser has no such feature. If using this case, then I recommend to use LB device type GRBL-M3 for code gen of M3/M5 per cut and optional pierce delay (LB Cut Through Start Pause). Using device type GRBL will assume your controller is operating in laser mode $32=1, and gcode will leverage that expected behavior, making torch triggering/control more complicated if not impossible.
I have a THC and thus use the case of LB for design only (device type doesn’t matter), then export SVG, import into SheetCAM, gen, run using UGS. The work flow cycle time is less than 1 min. I don’t recall why I chose SVG over DXF, could be related to preserving layers, and I select the layers for code gen in SC. Could be for scaling, which is 1:1 in the case of SC import.