Mississippi newbie

[tassleholf98]

I have been using lightburn for my laser work.
Now i am learning how to operate a plasma table.
Mach3 is so different . i will be asking a lot of questions.

Kev

[plasmanewbie]

Welcome aboard Kev. There are some folks here using Lightburn and plenty of Mach 3 users so your in good company if you require some help. What brand of plasma table are you working with?

[tassleholf98]

thanks i hope i can learn a lot.
LDS CNC 5x10 table
Hypertherm Powermax 105

[plasmanewbie]

LDS is not one I have heard of before, I checked them out and they look pretty cool, certainly different with the gantry spanning the long axis. Pretty cool and the Powermax 105 is a great machine as well. Good luck and post pics of the stuff your making if you can, always interesting to see what others are doing.

[acourtjester]

Welcome aboard Kev, main difference is that Mach3 is only for the operations of the table. Lightburn has the drawing of a project incorporated in, but does not have the Z axis functions. It is helpful for your learning about layers, speed and power part of the CNC operations. You may look at SheeetCam for the G-code planning section and either a Lightburn, a CAD program or Inkscape to come up with the drawing of projects. There is a lot of info here for the basics of these.
have fun
Tom

[adbuch]

Welcome to the forum Kev! I have LightBurn and use it mainly for design/editing - but have not used it for actual laser cutting as I don't have a laser. I do use Mach3 to run one of my Avidcnc router tables, and it seems to do a great job - and with quite a colorful screen interface. What sorts of projects do you hope to cut (or have you been cutting) with your new plasma table? What software are you now using for your drawings/g-code creation for your plasma table? Many here seem to favor Inkscape, Fusion 360, or CorelDraw for their drawings and then Sheetcam for the g-code creation. As has been mentioned above, there is lots of information here about all of those topics, and more. Good luck and we hope to see some photos of some of your work.

David