file set up for hot wire plotter
In order to draw the pieces correctly, you should proceed as if you were cutting them manually: it is necessary to draw the geometries with the real measures already reduced to the scale of the model and in millimetre units of measurement.
The maximum dimensions of the sheet or block that can be cut by the machine are: 1320 x 650 x 650h mm. The drawings of the pieces to be cut with the plotter must be positioned inside a frame with the longer side placed horizontally and the same dimension of the material in your possession.
The pieces to be cut must be placed in the frame with at least 10 mm of distance from the edge, starting from the bottom left-hand corner. Arrange the pieces to be cut inside the frame with at least 5 mm of distance from each other.
Delete the frame before saving the file, which must be in .dxf 2000 format in order to be imported into the cutter management program.
To cut several sheets of material, it is necessary to prepare an equivalent number of files.
useful tips
The file used for cutting must contain only the pieces to be cut, no frames and no drawings on frozen or switched off layers. There must be no overlapping lines in the drawing to avoid excessive melting of material. If you draw with AutoCAD, we suggest using the _overkill command, which, inside a selection window, eliminates all possible overlapping lines keeping only the longest ones.
The machine management software does not recognise complex entities such as groups, regions or splines, so it is necessary to transform them into lines or polylines; if you draw with AutoCAD, we suggest using the _editpl command. If, after this transformation, the polylines have a density of points that is too high, use the _flatten command to decrease it.
In order to avoid producing fragile or unusable pieces, it is necessary to check that into the drawing there are no elements to be cut with dimensions less than 2 mm.
At the time of purchase, ask to the dealer about the density of the material in g/cm³ and communicate it to the operator, so that they can optimally set the cutting parameters.
with hot wire plotter it is possible to cut
- expanded styrofoam and polystyrene;
- polyurethane foam;
- extruded polystyrene foam XPS (styrodur).
it is not possible to cut
- rigid plastic such as methacrylate;
- lined foam materials (poliplat, kapa and similar);
- expanded polyurethane.