Sheet Metal Programming

[spade117]

Anyone here program sheet metal machines like cnc punches and lasers? What software do you use? What software is out there? Pros and cons on any that you know about?

[Goldorak]

the only one i know is Sigma Nest, but i never work with

 

http://www.sigmanest.com/en-us/index.aspx

[BenK]

I have seen this one but I personally have never used it. Looks easy to use.

[Norine64]

The benefit of the turret punch portion is that they are faster and cost less to operate.

 

The reason you would want the laser portion of a punch/laser machine is for cutting odd shapes, odd angles, etc.

 

Turret punches are great and very fast, however every time you need to punch an odd angle, you need to buy a specially keyed tool. A feature called Auto-Index on some turrets eliminates this need to a certain extent; however this is generally only on a few of the tool stations.

 

A laser on the other hand, requires no special tooling to cut any sort of angle. Also, if you were cutting unusual contours (imagine a wavy pattern), a laser could do this well, whereas a turret could not do so cleanly or easily.

 

So basically, a combo punch/laser gives you the speed and low operational cost of a turret punch, with the flexibility of a laser.

 

Another benefit of the turret punch portion is that you could work on materials like galvanized steel cleanly. I have not used a laser, but I have heard that the heat makes a mess of the zinc coating

[chris m]

Another plus for turrets is the ability to form material, which a laser cannot do; cardguides, louvers, "half-shears" (a hole that's punched halfway through which can be used for self-fixturing of weldments) and extruded holes for tapping are examples of this.

 

At my past employers we used software from these guys: http://www.merrymech.com/

 

Never used it myself, but we made a lot of money with it.

 

C