help with choosing software for my monster

[Artisiciron13]

hello everyone Artisiciron here been look @ a number of diff systems and doing lots of research over the past 6 months while stacking cash to get my plasma table last week I finally pulled the trigger and picked up an 1984 yr model airco table 6x12 cap 7 1/2 x 13 1/2 water table couldn't touch what I grabbed new for 25-30 k its equipped w a HT2000 plasma , oxy/acetelene torch extra torch head for plasma and some sort of electric eye for tracing patterns I went and checked it out and previous owner had upgraded to a much larger table so this unit was just taking up realestate in his shop after a demo we cut a deal for 4500$ now making space for this monster and cleaning up machine for a new paintjob also got a bunch of consumables for plasma and an extra oxy torch waitin on the electric co to hook up my 3ph the reason for this thread was to get sum feedback on the best software for a newbie I am planning on doin sum light fab production cutting and metal art thinking AutoCAD, or maybe Solid works feel free to chime in with suggetions all EARS at this point I no that there is some freeware out there but fig its an investment in my future thanks in advance Artisiciron

[mike 1948]

Since you are going to be cutting 2d vectors, Solidworks would be way overkill. A full seat of AutoCAD may be the same overkill (IMO)
Draftsight handles DXF and DWG files and is free. Inkscape is also free.
Since you are also talking metal artwork, you could look at Vectric's Vcarve Pro. It mainly setup for wood but is very versatile working with vectors and outputs DXF for plasma. There is also the Corel product that can be used for vectors, tracing pictures, etc.

Good Luck
Mike

[tcaudle]

Humm...what kind of files does it take? How do you get them into the controller? Is it PC based or a dedicated controller with a "drip feeder". How do you get it from the drawing (DXF, DWG, etc) to code the table understands. Will it run from a DXF?. Hopefully this is not an "eye tracer" table that works like a paragraph and traces out a pattern.

[tm america]

Inkscape is a great free cad software .. To me it is better than most you would pay 1000 bucks or more for.. It has great node editing,great scanning features. nice text features and also has tons of great effects which make it great for 2d stuff like plasma,plate marking and other 2d stuff.. There are lots of great youtube videos walking you thru pretty much anything you might wanna draw..

[jimcolt]

If it has a cnc it likely is an old Burny3 microprocessor control. The photocell head (if it works) can trace drawings and the burny control can digitize them. Or you can input .cnc files directly into the Burny (3.5 floppy!) if you have the correct CAM software to post process CAD drawings.

Jim Colt

[Black Forest]

The first thing you should invest in is the period key! I stopped reading your post as it is quite taxing to read without some semblance of punctuation.