Nesting small part

[paul60]

I have been cutting alot of small parts and all diff shapes. its alot of work trying to nest them on
a 8x4 sheet up to about 50-70 parts on a sheet.
very tedious work.
is there a software out there that does this?
thanks paul

[Brady Watson]

ArtCAM Pro & Insignia will nest irregular parts on a sheet.

-B

[hespj]

Paul

there are a couple of online nesting services:

http://www.string.it/cutweb_nesting_supply_chain_management.aspx

http://www.e-nesting.com:2101/ecnc/home.htm

And I've got a few links:

http://www.rhino-plugins.com/index.php?cont=products&sub=mosaix

http://www.rhino3d-design.com/

http://www.sheetlayout.com/whatsnew.htm

http://www.optimizecutter.com/index.html

Also the ShopBot Wiki has a few links

http://shopbotwiki.editme.com/Nesting

John

[paul60]

Thanks for the information on the nesting software.
does anyone have experience using any of the suggested software?
would appreciate any feed back
thanks paul

[davidp]

We use Artcam and use the nesting feature everyday. It has its strengths and it certainly has its limitations.

You must remember that nesting parts is all about achieving the maximum yield of parts that conform to the specifications in the quickest possible time. Many factors will determine this outcome.

Using Artcam will not always produce the result you need and yes you may save time in the nesting process using artcam but to produce efficiently you will need to tweak the results. You will need to reorder your toolpaths otherwise the parts will be cut in a random order with the gantry moving all over the sheet. You will also need to be careful of where your start points are to ensure that parts do not come loose before you have finished cutting them.

We reguarly nest small parts on sheets of 1200 x 2400 x 6 mm (48" x96" x1/4") ply. On recent job we were able to get 32 sets of 14 parts on one sheet by manually nesting but artcam nested only 28 sets per sheet. We also saved around 2 minutes per set in cutting time. Significant savings when you are cutting 1,500 sets (50 sheets), it took me less than half an hour to nest this job manually. Sure it is tedious but to save 20 sheets of material and more than 50 hours of cutting time was more than sufficient compensation for the time spent nesting this job by hand.

Sure there are hundreds of jobs we have nested using artcam and mostly were are happy with the results but you still need to be aware of its stregths and limitations and work within those bounds. I would suggest that it is a good first step.

For what it is worth

David

[davidp]

I forgot to mention that we mostly use TurboCad for complicated jobs, to draw and then nest parts. We export the drawing and then either use VCarve of ArtCam to toolpath the job.

Using Artcam in this instance is a bit like cracking walnuts with a sledgehammer but it works for us

David

[hespj]

I tried the demo of Rhino Nest and it was good except it wouldn't mirror parts (turn them over) to optimise nesting. This is fine if you are using a material with 'good' and 'bad' sides (such as leather which I believe the program was designed for), but a bit limiting if using MDF or regular ply.

I ended up mirroring some items myself and then running the nesting program to get a better fit.

John

[bill.young]

Our friend Jean Francois, the guy who created the original ShopBot wiki for the Jamboree and compiled the list of nesting software that John linked to above, has started organizing the Nesting section in the current wiki. I'm sure he'd appreciate any help he can get from y'all.

If you have any experience with any of those nesting programs (or any others), feel free to add a page about it. If not you can help by just putting the links that are already there into their proper categories.

http://shopbotwiki.com/index.php?title=NestingMain

Thanks jf,
Bill

[bcammack]

ProNest is awesome

http://www.mtc-limited.com/

Of course, it's also about $25,000.00