I didn't mean to imply my way was the best or only way
Sorry if I sounded that way. It just kind of hit me like a slap: use the wasteboard once and throw it away ?
And the 16 minutes, 19 seconds sounds like a long time. Now I'm a lot more curious. It sounds like the 3-4 times we flycut 1 wasteboard is costing, not saving us money.
Grady and Dave, both of your plans sound doable. The problem I have is finding 5 x 10 mdf, I can get 5 x 8 x1/4 all day long. The thing that kills me from ordering from Thermwood is the freight (Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking Thermwood, It's the freight I have a problem with, and I know with fuel prices like they are now, everything is more expensive to ship). I was going to order a couple sheets last month, but the freight alone was over $125.00. By the time you figure the material and the freight, that is some expensive sheet goods. My sheet good supplier can order it in full bundles, but I do not really need 50 sheets laying around.
Dave, I would be interested in your flycut program also. I under stand Grady's view point also, but for me, my machine is not running a full shift everyday. It just makes since to flycut when its idle.
Dave,
We don't actually throw them away. We use them for decks in crates we ship in. Let us know know what you come up with for a time on your fly cutting program. Mine my not be optimized.
Damon,
We have a hard time getting 5'X10' also. I just use 4'X8' and then cut fillers for the extra. We probably just cut 4'X8' material about 95% of the time so I just replace the full sheet when needed.
Okay, Time to flycut one side of wasteboard is 4 minutes, 11 seconds. Of course our table is only 4x8, so the same program would take longer on a 5x10.
Damon, I'd be happy to share the program, but you'd have to modify it to use on your table. It makes a perimeter pass, then calls a label(?) and runs back and forth till it Estops out of bounds or we stop it manually.
Oh, yours goes out of bounds too... I thought I could just remove one line of code to fix that but THM said it is more involved than that. I guess we'll just have to keep stopping it manually.