Swift Cut Libellula Wizard

[steve3yott]

Greetings,
I am helping a friend out with his shop in which he has a Swift Cut 5x10 table and a Hypertherm 85 machine. The counsel has Solid Edge, Libellula Wizard (3) and then the Swift Cut control software. The area I am having (major) issues with is the Libellula Wizard which is version 2.2.15... The software seems very lets say old fashioned and is not friendly to use. I have been around computers most of my life and can usually muck my through anything but this program seems to never do the same thing the same way twice and I just basically don't care for it. Looking on their website I see they are demonstrating version 3.1.0.... Can anyone tell me if this a much better software or should we start looking for a replacement CADCAM program such as ProNest etc.

Help please we have a big job due soon and I am constantly struggling with one error of "Impossible to create nesting, check job definition". There is no tab I can find for "job definition".

Thanks everyone, Yes, I am new to this and very willing to learn..
Steve

[tcaudle]

An alternate direction is to use an open source drawing program like Inkscape (really good for decorative type cutting) or QCAD. Having everything rolled into one package has some disadvantages. The best low cost CAM program for plasma and simple routing (2.5D) is SHeetCAM TNG. SwiftCut used to use Sheetcam. Their control program is probably MACH3 with custom screens. If not, finding a POST for some other type requires you know what that software is.

Follow some of the threads here on waht a lot of end users use for drawing and CAM.

Hint: Inkscape is open source and free. It uses SVG as a native vector file format. SheetCAM TNG reads SVG direclty with full arcs and circles intact. It will also take DXF but depending on the export filter that can be segmented or arcs and circles.