A lot to learn

[M art]

gday, New to plasma, looking forward to learning and sharing.
A little experience with laser cutters.
i'm an old Vietnam vet , ex grunt who never gives up.
Thanks for letting me join. Australia

[Rex]

Welcome
This is a good place to start
lots of help if need it

[adbuch]

Welcome aboard Art! What particular plasma tables are you looking at, or do you already have one? Do you have a particular software program you like for design work and cam? What sorts of projects are you interested in creating? Lots of question!

David

[SegoMan DeSigns]

G' Day Mate,

Welcome to the forum, we have several on here from down-unda.

The best advise I can give you is to start a journal and write everything down. The information documentation will save you many times over. Just the downloaded CNC information on my hard drive is now over 4 GB. My build manual with wiring diagrams is in digital format as well for ease of updating & printing.

Steve

[adbuch]

That's a great idea Steve! I assume when you say "write everything down" you mean in digital format, as you have eluded to. I also like to bookmark pages of interest for future reference. I know that Tom has various folders for his bookmarks with names reflecting the contents. Yes - organization is the key here.

David

[acourtjester]

Having a paper trail is very important, now a days is a digital trail (take up less space). And can makes finding things easier using a search function on web pages and on your computer. There is so much helpful info available from here and other sources with a click of a mouse and selecting a location for storage. I have many on my desktop for quick access. I also use temporary shortcuts videos on the desktop I want to watch again. I need to put a good label on they to keep the old mind sharp, also labels for web sites for parts later.

desk icons.JPG (35.48 KiB) Viewed 1936 times

desk icons.JPG (35.48 KiB) Viewed 1936 times

desk icons 2.JPG (28.96 KiB) Viewed 1936 times

desk icons 2.JPG (28.96 KiB) Viewed 1936 times

[SegoMan DeSigns]

That's a great idea Steve! I assume when you say "write everything down" you mean in digital format, as you have eluded to. I also like to bookmark pages of interest for future reference. I know that Tom has various folders for his bookmarks with names reflecting the contents. Yes - organization is the key here.

David

David,

The "write everything down" is done in a cryptic font (that only I can understand) for each machine that I build, (wiring diagrams, mechanical info ect.) Then at a later date it is transferred to digital format. A miniature book that contains only the cut charts of what I need and other condensed information is printed and left at the machine.

My CNC shortcut on the desktop has sub folders for all different manufacturers, PDF's of manuals are stored there. I don't always have internet so this is handy. The You Tube "Save As" has separate folders for each category of videos. If it is a video I can live without it is downloaded to the H D. A slew of bookmarked links is on the Firefox tool bar as well.

Computers are either a blessing or one of mankind's worst achievements..

How does the saying go?

To err is human to really fowl things up requires a computer!

Steve

[M art]

thanks for the welcome.
I was on the forum most of yesterday , amazing work and a lot of helpful advice. thank you.
I was writing down some things and saving on desktop other information.
My machine is 4'x4' size, water table, 60 amp power box,180 psi compressor,
Star cam software.A few things to get, filters etc.
It's on a ship near indonesia at the moment.
I use corel draw x5, photo shop with my co2 laser and recently got Inkscape.
if i have a problem sometimes removing background
i use an online service to do it.
Noticed there are some silhouette maker apps out there,
might try them out. thanks everyone ,
M art