Video: Nesting with and without arrays

[jdh239]

Just a video showing nesting with the full version of TM and how CADlite users might go about trying to nest parts easily

Torchmate CAD/CAM: Nesting, With and Without Arrays - YouTube

[SinisterSandSports]

In the section toward the end of the video, you were making your own plate size to compensate for other parts that had been cut, i'm assuming your talking about previously using the sheet, cutting out the parts, sticking it on the shelf, then putting it back on the table, setting it back up in the exact same position (prob. via some fencing attached to the table) and then cutting the new parts off that sheet, correct?

Instead of having to go through and hand draw the line for available space, which isn't even giving you all the actual available space, could you not just save the original cut sheet layout, maybe give it a name, write that same name down on the sheet before you pull it off the table, then, when you have new parts, pull up the file that was originally used to cut that sheet, leave the original drawings in the program so you can nest the other parts around it, then delete the original parts from the drawing so the machine doesn't try to cut them again (since there isn't material there anyway)?

You could even put a little bit of an offset around the original parts before you delete them, say an extra 1/8" or something just to make sure you had a little more clearance.

Once you have used up the entire sheet, you can delete the program out of the computer that pertained to that sheet, but you could figure out how to do this multiple times as long as you had a way to save in the program all that had been cut from that sheet.

[North Shore Fab]

hypertherm has a software think its called pronest that has a very sophisticated inventory tracking abilities. assigns a plate number to everything that is cut and when you put a job into the system that is not a full sheet it will call out what plate number to grab from the rack.

what your talking about would be an easy thing to set up as long as your some what organized and have a fence on the table tho not required would really make it a snap to throw a used shit up there and just go to town on it

Another thing i thought of that i would like to implement into my shop is better tracking of steel and its cost. as the steel prices changes daily sometimes. but i may be sitting on a shit from a year ago that cost me x and that is more or less then it is today.


So if you came up with a way to number your sheets with maybe a part number you could also have it in a chart somewhere with the price you paid and the date.

[jdh239]

The plate selection was just an example. In reality, I would take a semi-used plate from my inventory, put it on the table, and take some rough measurements and draw a more simplified shape (like a rectangle with different length sides) on the table and cut that out.

I just wanted to show its capabilities with a wacky shape.

[kbenz]

Thanks for the video. you answered a few questions I had.