new to plasma cutting, illinois

[chip9399]

from central illinois here, all new to plasma cutting, i ordered a langmuir crossfire pro to start with, getting shop ready for the new furniture, where is a good way to get a library of files to start with, learning curve with the software as far as creating my oun designs. langmuir offers fusion 360 anf firecontrol, is this a good one to learn or suggestions? thank all

[robertspark]

Welcome to the forum, fusion 360 is good to learn especially if you wish to do other things like 3d printing or making 3d parts / objects or part of an assembly of components and you can see how everything fits together.

[adbuch]

where is a good way to get a library of files to start with

You can search the DXF Clip Art File Sharing Forum on this site for plenty of cut ready files to practice on. I believe the annual cost is $20 to become a contributing member and have full access to these files. Well worth it, in my opinion.

langmuir offers fusion 360 and firecontrol, is this a good one to learn or suggestions? thank all

Fusion 360 is a free 3D design and modeling tool from Autodesk, and I believe that Firecontrol is the proprietary control software offered by Langmuir Systems. There are some excellent Fusion 360 tutorials at the Langmuir site below.
David

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

[Rodw]

Note Fusion is only free in some circumstances.

I just paid for a subscription and have been struggling to convert from another cad system so thanks for that link. I've been fighting with it!

[adbuch]

Fusion 360 is free for students/hobbyists. It used to also be free for start-ups making under 100k per year, but it looks like that has changed.
David

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal

https://www.autodesk.com/education/edu- ... red&page=1

[adbuch]

Note Fusion is only free in some circumstances.

I just paid for a subscription and have been struggling to convert from another cad system so thanks for that link. I've been fighting with it!

It's pretty easy to use, and the learning curve is not too steep. It's very similar to Solid Works. I use both, but plan to use Fusion 360 more when I get my new hobby cnc atc machining center finished. Let me know if you have any particular questions about Fusion 360 or need help getting a file going and I'll be happy to help.
David

[adbuch]

Don't know why it put the same photo in twice. It only show it once in my preview.
David

[Rodw]

I can't agree its like SW. I really struggled with Fusion coming from SW.

[adbuch]

The design portion of Fusion 360 is very similar to the SolidWorks 2016 that I use (in my opinion), or at least it is for me, but there is no CAM in the version of SolidWorks I use. That makes a big difference in the learning curve for Fusion 360. I am also used to using MasterCAM, Vectrics Aspire, and several others - so that probably helps as well. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I will try to help you out.
David

[adbuch]

But I will say that my biggest complaint about Fusion 360 is that it is "cloud driven". And lately, it seems even slower. The beauty of SolidWorks (for me) is that it is not tied to the internet, and is a stand-alone program. I get very frustrated sometimes with the Fusion 360 lag time while the server is chewing on my program (particularly longer for more complex files). Here is an article comparing and contrasting some of the differences between the two - SW vs. F360.
David

https://total3dprinting.org/solidworks-vs-fusion-360/

[adbuch]

This is a part I did last year for a friend. It is a patch to an existing fire pit. I modeled it in SolidWorks, but imported the dxf file into Design Edge (Plasmacam table) to cut it. For this sort of thing, to me Fusion 360 has more of a "hobby program" feel, whereas SolidWorks seems professional/first class all the way. This was a single piece with tabs to allow for easy hand bending of the "pedals". Sort of overkill for the intended purpose. But if I didn't own a Plasmcam table, I could just as easily imported the dxf file into Fusion 360 and generated the cut paths for the particular table.
David

[Rodw]

But I will say that my biggest complaint about Fusion 360 is that it is "cloud driven".

I see that as a major advantage. Everything I do is in the cloud. I collaborate with so many people via Google Drive. The only two applications I use that require a PC are CAD and Photo processing.

This time I bit the bullet and subscribed to F360, Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and Rush (video editing). Plus a new Intel NUC PC with a Radeon Graphics card. Then I had to buy a new desk to make room for dual monitors.

So now I am 100% cloud based but my only regret is that Adobe and Fusion both dictate the operating system when I want to be OS agnostic. Linux and my Chromebook can do everything else! I suspect I will also buy a new Windows PC at home the same as the one I have at work in a month or so.

[adbuch]

If work is paying, then that's not so bad. The subscription cost for most of that stuff is sky-high. With it all online, then you will be able to take advantage and "work from home".
David

[robertspark]

Looks like fusion 360 will go the same way onshape went....

as the popularity increases they put the squeeze on to buy a licence / subscription.

I've struggled with FreeCAD..... but at least the clue's in the name.... I come from 20+ years of autodesk use so fusion makes sense to me, I tried solidworks and the nomenclature just did not make sense to me hence I used inventor for about 5 years before switching to fusion360 in march and making the effort to get my head around it as it looks similar to inventor but works differently with regards to assemblies (in inventor) and joints / constraints and they way they are set in inventor and released in fusion

I've always liked the way I could design a folded metal part allowing for bend radius and then flatten it for plasma cutting which was my main use before my takeup with 3d printing in march which its really nice to use with to export STL's and then use CURA to do my 3d gcode generation.

[Rodw]

If work is paying, then that's not so bad. The subscription cost for most of that stuff is sky-high. With it all online, then you will be able to take advantage and "work from home".
David

When work pays I pay

I found sometimes SW would get a part stuck in a folded or unfolded state and the steps to resolve it were very intuitive. So far F360 is working better. I was able to put a v nick on each side of a F360 part so show me where to fold a part. I did this on the flat pattern. If I tried that in SW, the part would not fold/unfold again and F360 worked fine.

I did consider Onshape but its very expensive compared with F360. A friend uses it and also bought a licence to F360 for the cam side which Onshape does not do. And Onshape keep wanting to make him pay for a license. All in all for AUD 800 for 3 years I thought F360 was a bit of a bargain!