Fastcam problem

[rommel]

Hello everybody, I am new to this forum, just registered this day and I am amazed by how good it is. The dxf that some of the members uploaded are excellent. I am new to cnc plasma cutting, I just set up the machine that I bought from China to work and the program they gave me to convert pictures I wanna cut into the .txt (g-code?) files so the plasma machine (controller) could read is fastcam. I have successfuly uploaded some pictures of my own and cut them, but I have recently downloaded here some more "complicated" work, for example somebody's picture of forest scene and chevy car and tried to convert them in Fast program but it seems the picture Is just too much for the program to handle and the program gets blocked. This Is very frustrating, because I want to start full-force in cutting steel.

Can you guys help me fix this problem, or maybe even better introduce me to another program that you use in this purpose that could be also useful for me and more efficient?

Thank you for all the good work and info you have shared on this forum.

[rommel]

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I use corel draw to edit/make my pictures. Then I save the file in .DXF format. I open the FastCAM and then i restore the .dxf file and make "paths" for the picture and save the file as .txt file. The file is then imported into the machine and cutting starts. However, I try to upload a really big picture, or really detailed, and the FastCAM, while in proccess of pathing that picture, gets stuck and non-responding. Hope I explained this well.

So I was wondering if there was any other software I could use for this purpose other than FastCAM or if I could do anything about it.

Sorry, I am currently not at my working pc so I can not upload the pictures or any files I used.

Thank you.

[fab-man]

Sounds like you simply need a better post processor to generate your G code. I plan to mess with LazyCam over the weekend to see how it works and will let you know how it works out for me. When I figure it out I will try to convert some more detailed DXF files and see how it responds.

Fab-Man

[plain ol Bill]

Try Sheetcam (Sheetcam.com). It is a great post processor, easy to use and will handle some truly large files.

[rommel]

Thanks for all the replies. I downloaded sheetcam but I can hardly understand it. I hardly understand fastcam aswell. In fastcam the picture has aproximately 5000 entities. I somehow managed to lower it to 2000 but it is still too much..

Could you please tell me how I can use a .dxf file in sheetcam, to remove all unnecesary entities (drawing parts) and to make it easy and simple for the machine to cut?

[plain ol Bill]

You are going to have to remove any entities you do not want in your drawing program (Corel). Sheetcam takes a .dxf file and turns it into G code that can be read by most controllers. Sheetcam is smart enough to close any open vectors and eliminate double lines (at least that is what the screen tells me it is doing when I put some .dxf files in) Sheetcam is really pretty easy to use and comes with some tutorials. Additional tutorials can be found on the net by doing a search.

[bgmachine]

rommel
Sorry this is late in this post but I to use FastCam and have had some issues with the size of some drawings. First thing I have to do is Clean and Compress the file {its in Erase tab}. Then check Contour of each shape {its in Verify tab} make sure each one is closed .Sometimes when you compress files they open up in FastCam . It seems to be some drawings over 25000 entities just don't load in FastCam haven't found a fix for this one yet .Sorry I really haven't been any help , just wanted you to know your not the only one.

[Plasman256]

BG Machine I think is on the right track. We train fastCAM and I believe if you Cad Clean and Cad Compress the file it should make it work without issues. Also if you are using the FASTPATH option I would not. I would do it manually. This seems to allow it to work better as well when pathing a larger file. If you can send me the file I will try it out in fastcam on my end. Also, send me a simple square with a circle TXT file so that i can verify I am using the correct post file to make your machine read the g-code. Send it to jpw@plasmacraft.com.

Have a Great Day!

Jonathan/Plasman