Denford Software & Machines

Hi,
Could you please give me some advice about how I can get a group of year 8 students to prepare files for cutting a relief mould for pewter casting. I have a single set of Quick Cam 2D design and site license of Techsoft 2D design. I also have creo parametric so could go via a STL file....

BUT.... I don't want to have to take the students dxf artwork and then apply cutting parameters individually. I would like them to generate their own cutting (.fnc?) files and then pass these to me for simple outputting using my previously set work offsets...

I would need to output 40 separate moulds over the corse of 5 lunch breaks!

Can it be done easily?
Thanks

If they had the designs in QuickCAM 2D, the wizard is pretty simple....you could create some basic notes for them to create the .fnc file eg:
Open QuickCAM
Set Billet size to X80mm Y80mm Z25mm
Import .DXF
Position design in bottom left corner of drawing sheet
Click CAM wizard
Pick material: MDF
Add Area Clearance machining plan
--Set cut depth to 5mm
--Select All and the Calculate - you should now see something like this...
Click Next
Click PostProcess and save the .fnc file somewhere you can find it again
etc...

The .fnc file can be viewed in Notepad (or VR milling) and has comments at the top so you can check they've picked the correct tooling, material size and type eg:
(Denford Post Output - QuickCAM 2D Design
(Date: 18/01/2013
(Time: 16:00:41
(Source File: \My Documents\Denford\CNC Files\Untitled.fnc
[BILLET X150.000 Y150.000 Z12.000
(Machine: COMPACT 1000
(Material: Foam / Balsa
[TOOLDEF T0505 D10

Ok... I thought that was probably the case. So I will need to buy the site license for Quick Cam 2D? I do not really like the programme as a drawing tool.
Can I do it via Techsoft 2D design which I already have installed... I seem to remember outputting from techsoft previously.... but is that only when directly connected to the machine?

I also have techsoft design tools v1 if that is the best route?

Thanks

You could use Techsoft v1 which will allow them to create .fnc files directly but it's maybe not as straight forward to see what the result will be.
You can get the Denford Techsoft post processor extension here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=678
Note that the older version of Techsoft needed a Denford extension license on floppy disk which they made a small charge for. It sounds like you already have it if you think it has output .fnc files directly in the past.

Alternatively they can create the drawing in Techsoft v2 and export the .dxf to be imported into VR Milling v5 directly or via QuickCAM 2D

Thanks.
I have had some success in going directly through vr milling and it works well for small numbers of files, but It is the whole class bottle neck that is my main issue.
I will try the techsoft route again.
Ta

In the QuickCAM 2D Help file there is a tutorial on Pewter casting.

The post processing part of it would be the same with the DXF import into VR Milling as it would with the QuickCAM 2D

I think the Tool path Wizard in QuickCAM and VR Milling is far more simple than using Techsoft so a site licence of either of the packages would allow you to do what you are after.