#CREATING NEW LAYER IN SHEETCAM SERIES#

(And if you notice the steel thickness is wrong for 16ga - I had a 14ga one I created for something else and just copied it without changing the thickness of the material in my tool name ). I added a quick one for the RW-45 for this walkthrough. You can see a bunch of HT-45 tools defined in my tool set but those are all for the Hypertherm. The tool definition I have is for the вЂњRW-45 ), the material (16ga Steel), and the thickness (0.75). In the popup select the Contour Method (outside cut - places the kerf on the outside of the line), Layer (my вЂњoutside cutвЂќ), the Tool (IвЂ™ve got an RW45 std tip running at 30A for 16ga already defined and pick that) and I specify an Arc for the lead-in (too smooth the transition of the torch as it slides into the actual path) and a lead-in Length of 0.12in as I like to roughly double the kerf size to make sure I have room for the piercing point hole and then the travel to the line so thereвЂ™s no kerf that touches or overruns the line IвЂ™m cutting.

#CREATING NEW LAYER IN SHEETCAM SERIES#

But for this one itвЂ™s going to be straightforward series of 3 cuts.Д¬lick on the Jet cutting tool in the Operations box on the lower left. IвЂ™ll also move starting points around on larger pieces where I want to avoid warping from concentrating too many cuts in too short a time too closely together. I like going from inside out and smaller feature to larger feature to minimize chances of bumping into a tip-up. I should do them in the order I want them to cut but I donвЂ™t spend too much time thinking about the order right now and IвЂ™ll just rearrange them afterward. Now that weвЂ™ve got the parts separated into layers, we define the cuts. That name will show up in the Layer Tool on the right and will also be in the dropdown when you are defining the cutting action. I tend to use something descriptive so I know what part of the design IвЂ™m cutting - like вЂњOutside CutвЂќ. Click on the Move to Layer in the pop-up and then the New Layer and give it a name. You define layers & the lines/cuts that go into the layer by clicking on the Contour tool on the menu bar (the upward facing arrow with the C behind it). But for now IвЂ™m looking at 3 for this one. The hole will also be an inside cut so could also be part of the letters layer, but I find smaller objects might need more tweaking so I tend to put holes in their own layer - just personal preference.ДЇor complex parts I might have a dozen layers with different lead-in/out values depending on the intricacies of the shape. The letters IвЂ™ll make an inside cut so the inside of the letters that will be the material that drops out will be the waste side.

The outside IвЂ™ll want an outside offset so the waste material is outside of the cutline and thatвЂ™s where the kerf & lead-in will be.

That way I can create different cut parameters to each cut. IвЂ™m going to assign the outer cut line, the letters and the hole to different layers. Sheetcam looks at the colors in a file and assigns them to different layers. YouвЂ™ll then see you have 1 layer (color 0).

Click on the View menu option and then the Layer Tool. Notice over on the left side I have a вЂњLayersвЂќ box under the Parts box.

Creating new layer in sheetcam