Beginning Torchmate CAD walkthrough Hopefully by now you have orientated yourself with the Torchmate CAD window,

and are ready to take on the challenge of creating your own images, creating tool paths, and sending them to the Torchmate Driver software for cutting or routing.

With your material page in front of you, that is the blank page with the dark rectangle border, you can now start the creative process. Lets go to the shape tool, select a circle, then move the cursor to the material page and left click and hold the mouse key. Drag open a circular shape. When you are satisfied with the size of your shape, release the mouse key. You created a circle. Now lets try the same operation using the square shape in the shape tool menu. Remember to click on the rectangle tab first, then move your cursor to the material page, left click and hold the mouse button, then drag open a square shape. Release. By using the Object Height and Width windows above the material page you can specify the exact dimensions of the shapes you have just created. Lets click on the line of the square, when you click on the line you should see the 9 boxes that surround the shape.

This tells us that the shape is selected. With the shape selected, go up to the object width, click in the white area next to the current numbers, the hit the backspace key to remove the numbers. Now enter the number for the size you wish to change the width of the square to (for example 4.0, which equals 4 inches), then push the enter key on your keyboard. Now let us do the same thing for the height of the square. Let's now change the size of the circle to a two inch diameter. To do this you will want to change the width and height of the circle to 2" x 2", and will do so in the same manor that you changed the shape of the square. With both shapes resized, let's work on repositioning the circle inside the square. Let's click on the line of the circle, when the little boxes surround the circle (selected), use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the circular shape in to a position inside the square. When you are satisfied with the new position, click outside the square to de-select the image. In order for this shape to be cut out, it is important for us to tell the Torchmate CAD software that this is a part, more precisely that the area between the interior of the square and the exterior of the circle are solid. To do this select the object, go to the Arrange menu, and click on Make Path. This operation tells the software that the objects on the screen make up one part, and as such the middle must be cut out before the exterior of the square. To check if the part is seen as solid, go to the View menu, and select Show Fill. Go back to the view menu and turn off show Fill before proceeding.

Now that the Path has been made, let's focus on creating a tool path. The tool path is the information that the software tells the torch and machine where to move, when to start cutting, when to stop cutting, and where to move next. With our image selected, go to the Machine menu, click on Create Tool Path, then select Male. The Male tool path will cut the middle of the circle so that the true middle falls out of the part, then it will cut the square shape out of the remaining material, leaving us one solid part, a four inch square with a two inch circle in the middle. Once you have selected the Male tool path, a new window called the Default Template will open.

In this template you can specify various properties of the cut you are to create. For example, under the template tab you may choose the material to be cut. Under the Basic cut tab you may select the direction of cut (conventional or climbing) and type of cornering (sharp or roll).

For the lead in / out tab, this information is pertinent if you wish to create leads for your cut. The lead in tells the software that the pierce should start in the waste material, once the pierce is established the cut will move in a line or arc fashion toward the actual cut path where it will then follow the cut path until it completes the cut and the torch follows the lead out back into the waste material before terminating the torch arc and moving to its next cut position. You may specify the type of lead in and/or out by arc radius or by line length. For the line length you may also specify the angle at which the pierce enters and exits the cut path. I recommend a lead in angle of 45 degrees and a lead out of 55 degrees to start. This will allow you to see the leads once the tool path has been created. The overlap refers to the distance past the entrance that the torch will continue before making the lead out (This may be important when you are trying to get a smoother cut path in shapes that involve many circular shapes or in text graphic images), you do not, however, have to select the overlap option. Now you can push the Okay button on the bottom of this window, and the software will now process the tool path. This operation may take a few seconds to a matter of minutes depending on the size, length, and number of cuts in your image.

The tool path should now be seen as a darker line around you previous image. You should also be able to see the lead in and out at each cut start point. If you do not see the tool path, go to the View menu, and check to see if Show Tool Path has a check mark to the left of the option. If it does not, Click on the option and the tool path should now be visible. With the tool path visible we need to delete our original image before exporting to the driver software. Select your image and go to the View menu. Click on the option Show Tool Path. This will temporarily turn the tool path off, and by doing so will allow us to see your original image only.

Select the original image and push the Delete key on your keyboard. This will remove the original permanently.

Now, return to the View menu, re-click on the Show Tool Path option, which turns the tool path back on. With your tool path visible and your original deleted, you are now ready to continue in several ways, you can export this file to a folder or floppy disc for importation to the driver software, you may use the Array option in the Layout menu to make multiple copies of your image, or you may use the Nesting feature to condense those copies in to a particular section of your material sheet and economize the material being used. An important tip to remember in the beginning of Torchmate CAD operation, a lined drawing, imported file, or scanned image may only be saved as a CDL file before a tool path has been created. This means that an image saved with a tool path will be saved only as a DXF file. The primary difference for you to realize is that a CDL file will allow additional editing to be done; the DXF file however will usually not permit any further editing, unless you can delete the tool path. For more information on related subject please contact Tech Support.