Is Corel good for plasma

[shiver]

Hello Corel users,

A support tech with Dynatorch told me that Corel does not produce good CNC files. Have you found this to be true? My experience is in cutting vinyl on a plotter. I've been designing graphics in the same manner for plasma as I have for my plotter. I was told that Corel produces too many nodes therefore won't give me a clean cut. I'm cutting metal art, not precise parts, so I'm not so worried about clean cuts, in a sense. Is too many nodes a bad thing? I know I can go in a reduce the number of nodes and also increase the smoothness, therefore reducing nodes. But I did that with a file last night, a contour around some text, and when I brought it into Sheetcam, everything was distorted. So maybe I need to leave more nodes in the graphic. The graphic was converted to curves, and I exported it as a dxf file. I use Corel x7. What is the science behind the CNC process? Does the plasma follow the line and look for the next node to go to?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm just trying to understand how the plasma cuts the graphic from the computer.

I've had my machine, a used 4x8 dynatorch table with a Hypertherm plasma, for less than 2 weeks. I'm learning something new everyday.

Thank you

[Gamelord]

I use Corel all the time and have no issues. Your node count really depends on the file. You can reduce them in Corel if needed. You can check the files I have shared on here, all of them done in Corel.

[tcaudle]

CorelDraw exports in DXF poorly (as does Illustrator) it does all line segments for the arcs and circles.

Either get DXFTool for CorelDraw or export in SVG. SheetCAM will read SVG with the arcs intact.

Once you learn the "tricks" it can do a lot of things for decorative cutting that is hard to do with other programs. It imports dozens of vector and bitmap file types and lets you fill (and even extrude) a drawing to give to a customer to sign off on. There are a bunch of plugins you can get (DXFTool is one) to do some neat stuff.

DXF is in UNITS meaning on the import you can make it inches or mm and if the scale is in inches in the drawing, the import needs to be the same units

[shiver]

Thank you for the info. It is a big help. I reached out about the DXF tool from the maker of the product and was told it's not compatible with Corel X7 yet. So for now I'll continue as I have been, and will also give SVG file saving a try. The maker of Sheetcam suggested I save as SVG as he has found it transfers better.

Vicki

[btburn]

I run a Dynatorch and all I use is Corel. It works great for me. I export in SVG, when i was using DXF it would clip corners occasionally.

[chattacuda]

Like the others have said Corel Draw is all I use for plasma. I really like that I can import a picture or bitmap and use the outline trace function to get some pretty quick ready to cut drawings. I occasionally have to export as a .svg file too if it clips a corner as a .dxf, but that is rare. I have been using it exclusively for over three years.