Hello people of Earth!

[TimSomers]

Yeah, I'm one of those guys...

Brand spanking new Langmuir Pro (Razorweld 45) owner living in Wisconsin. Looking forward to gaining insight into this venture that my buddy and I have jumped into.

Everything is setup and will be venturing to the metal store to check their drops bin shortly, but wanted to hop on here first and get a lay of the land.

Hopefully, as time goes on, I can lend some information to other newbies, but at this point, I'll be sucking up way more than I'll be serving out.

Thanks!

[plasmanewbie]

Welcome! Sound exciting, plenty of info and help here for you guys. Best of luck and have fun.

[SegoMan DeSigns]

Nanu Nanu

One of the great things about owning a new plasma table is how quickly they can devalue metal prices. What you just paid a $1 / pd for new is now scrap metal prices.

Good luck with your new machine!

[TimSomers]

Thanks for the responses.

One nice thing is how steel prices have come down a ton since I've done any real fabrication. Just picked up a mix of 11, 14 and 16 GA drops for around $22. Paid a LOT more than that 3 or so years ago.

[Joe Jones]

Also worth noting ... There are "Restaurant Supply" stores all around the country. They make all of the stuff for commercial kitchens, etc. I have picked up a ton of nice, clean stainless steel drops that they consider to be "trash" because the pieces, often eight to ten square feet in size, are "too small" for the things they make. The guys near me know what I am looking for, so they still stack the metal in their recycle area, but they have a stack of pieces that are IDEAL for my plasma table, and I get the stuff for about ten cents on the dollar!

Joe

[TimSomers]

That's a great situation. We have supply stores around, but they're only selling that which is made elsewhere. Pretty sure the closest actual manufacturer of anything is about 2 hours away. Not a major issue early on while getting ramped up. Of it takes off, then I may get a little more creative.

[adbuch]

Yeah, I'm one of those guys...

Brand spanking new Langmuir Pro (Razorweld 45) owner living in Wisconsin. Looking forward to gaining insight into this venture that my buddy and I have jumped into.

Everything is setup and will be venturing to the metal store to check their drops bin shortly, but wanted to hop on here first and get a lay of the land.

Hopefully, as time goes on, I can lend some information to other newbies, but at this point, I'll be sucking up way more than I'll be serving out.

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum! Whatever metal you use, it is probably best to start out with clean uncontaminated metal - whether it be steel, stainless steel, or aluminum. For experimenting with creating your drawings and cut paths - I would recommend getting a sharpie pen holder and attaching it to your torch - and then drawing instead of cutting so you can see what your actual cut paths will look like without wasting valuable metal.

It seems that many of the new Langmuir table owners gravitate towards Fusion 360 for creating their drawings, cut paths, and g-code. What cad programs are you using - or learning to use?

Langmuir has some great Fusion 360 tutorials at their site.

https://www.langmuirsystems.com/software/fusion

Let us know if you have any questions about any of this and we are here to help.

David

[TimSomers]

Welcome to the forum! Whatever metal you use, it is probably best to start out with clean uncontaminated metal - whether it be steel, stainless steel, or aluminum. For experimenting with creating your drawings and cut paths - I would recommend getting a sharpie pen holder and attaching it to your torch - and then drawing instead of cutting so you can see what your actual cut paths will look like without wasting valuable metal.

It seems that many of the new Langmuir table owners gravitate towards Fusion 360 for creating their drawings, cut paths, and g-code. What cad programs are you using - or learning to use?

Langmuir has some great Fusion 360 tutorials at their site.

https://www.langmuirsystems.com/software/fusion

Let us know if you have any questions about any of this and we are here to help.

David

Right now I'm working on refreshing my memory in Inkscape. Haven't used that in too many years and never in this kind of work flow. For part design, I'll be learning 360, just because it can also CAM along with the Langmuir system. Also looking into qCAD just because it's much less expensive, then I can use SheetCAM before dumping it into Fire Control. I have some experience with AutoCAD, but it's been 3-4 years in that head space, so much of this will hopefully be a refresher, rather than outright learning. LOL

[adbuch]

Inkscape is great for artistic type parts. There is a free version of Fusion 360 you can use that is great for mechanical type drawings as well as the CAM and post processing.

QCad Pro version is pretty inexpensive for the perpetual license - I think around $43. That is the one I have - I started out with the free version and decided to upgrade to the pro version. I used to complain that QCad did not have a proper trim tool like many of the other programs have. But just recently - it was pointed out to me by a fellow member that QCad does indeed have a proper trim tool - it is just called a different name - "Break out Segment" or "D2" keyboard shortcut.

Let us know if you have any specific questions are you proceed along your new journey.

David

[acourtjester]

I am in the early stages of learning Fusion 360, and I would say it is a very user friendly to learning. It has many keystrokes that are common sense and it shifts the top menu to the function what you may be doing at the time. The visual aids it has a great, the sample David points out above of the trim tool changing the item to red to insure that is what you want to trim. Highlighting the dimension box when you want to select or change its value. With onscreen Icons for the constraints to show horizontal/vertical, tangent, perpendicular, parallel, coincident, concentric and collinear is a big plus. There are many different YouTube tutorials by different posters for beginners showing different paths in the learning process Stick with one program for faster learning in place of jumping around to different ones, simply for the tool naming for the main reason.

[adbuch]

I am in the early stages of learning Fusion 360, and I would say it is a very user friendly to learning. It has many keystrokes that are common sense and it shifts the top menu to the function what you may be doing at the time. The visual aids it has a great, the sample David points out above of the trim tool changing the item to red to insure that is what you want to trim. Highlighting the dimension box when you want to select or change its value. With onscreen Icons for the constraints to show horizontal/vertical, tangent, perpendicular, parallel, coincident, concentric and collinear is a big plus. There are many different YouTube tutorials by different posters for beginners showing different paths in the learning process Stick with one program for faster learning in place of jumping around to different ones, simply for the tool naming for the main reason.

Tom - very well said! You have provided a great accurate description of some of the pluses of Fusion 360. I would not have a problem with someone working with several programs. I believe he said he had some past experience with AutoCad - and some of the others are similar with the commands.

David