Cutting Program

[Anna_S]

Does anyone know a website that has one of these?

I am forever being asked to work out how many cut pieces you can get out of a full sheet. Or from the following list of sheet sizes, what's the most economical way so cut the following panels.

Can anyone help?? There must be an easier way than me drawing things out on graph paper

[GTIR]

I look forward in having a drunken conversation at BT&P about what you have learnt after this!

[The Moose]

I'm sorry, I have absolutely no idea what you are asking!! Maybe you could give an example to explain?!?!

Cheers

The Moose

[Steamer]

You just need a basic CAD layout program.

I hear lots of people talking about Google Sketchup (but have never used it myself) I think it might even be free too.

[Anna_S]

Ok, sorry boring Friday afternoon question...

I'm talking sheet aluminium/stainless steel.
Customers come on with a variety of sizes they want. I have full sheets in stock in a variety of sizes, and I waste so much of my life figuring out which is the best sheet to use to make the most money out of them and how much to charge...

Make any more sense yet?

[Steamer]

Anna_S said:

Ok, sorry boring Friday afternoon question...

I'm talking sheet aluminium/stainless steel.
Customers come on with a variety of sizes they want. I have full sheets in stock in a variety of sizes, and I waste so much of my life figuring out which is the best sheet to use to make the most money out of them and how much to charge...

Make any more sense yet?

So what you want is a CAD package with all your stock size sheets stored in there as templates.. then when you customer gives you their part dimensions you can draw that out over the template, duplicate it, and see how many times it fits.

[t84]

Can it not be done mathmatically with an app written in say C#?

You'd have a stock database, input the dimensions required and it'd tell you what sheet to use?

[Anna_S]

Steamer said:

Anna_S said:

Ok, sorry boring Friday afternoon question...

I'm talking sheet aluminium/stainless steel.
Customers come on with a variety of sizes they want. I have full sheets in stock in a variety of sizes, and I waste so much of my life figuring out which is the best sheet to use to make the most money out of them and how much to charge...

Make any more sense yet?

So what you want is a CAD package with all your stock size sheets stored in there as templates.. then when you customer gives you their part dimensions you can draw that out over the template, duplicate it, and see how many times it fits.

Yeah that sounds like it
I have one for cutting posts and extrusions.. you can put in how many and of what length you have in stock, then what you need it cutting to, and it works out the most economical way of doing so - think it's called Cutting Schedule?

[Matt172]

something like this then?

http://www.pslopt.co.uk/public/cutting-optimisatio...

[plasticpig]

What you are looking for is cutting optimization software. The best software for you depends on your industry? Some will take input from CAD packages and generate the instructions for the CNC machines. It's actually quite a complex area and does not always rely on pure maths.

[SLacKer]

Hi

Use the following google query

software to calculate optimum cuts from a sheet

and you get loads

example

http://www.batchconverter.com/Cutting3-download-17...

this one has a demo u can run and it is free (as always check for viruses etc. with downloads)

http://www.maxcut.co.za/index.html

Edited by SLacKer on Friday 28th August 17:08

[Anna_S]

Matt!!! Thank you so much, you just made my life so much easier. Used the site you said and I have now quoted my job and can go home (read to the pub).
Definitely owe you a beer (read strawpedo) at BtaP now

Also, thanks to SLacKer - will check out your links next week.

[Engineer1]

Simple rectangles or complex shapes? if it is rectangles and cutting batches from one sheet then an exel spreadsheet could do it, otherwise it is a CAD problem at my old job we had software for the cutting table that would nest and arrange all the component parts, but that was Gerber software for the table and required DXF models of all the components.

[Anna_S]

Engineer1 said:

Simple rectangles or complex shapes? if it is rectangles and cutting batches from one sheet then an exel spreadsheet could do it, otherwise it is a CAD problem at my old job we had software for the cutting table that would nest and arrange all the component parts, but that was Gerber software for the table and required DXF models of all the components.

Just rectangles, nothing fancy - we're simple folk

[Matt172]

Anna_S said:

Definitely owe you a beer (read strawpedo) at BtaP now