This article was prompted by a customer who called in wanting to know if there was a way to path 35 identical square holes all at once. With circles, FastCAM® prompts you to do all of them at once, but does not do that with square holes.
A quick walk through on his settings showed that he had FastPATHTM but had never used it! Note: FastPATHTM can be located inside FastNEST®. Under files go to Set Pierce (there is also a shortcut button at the far right hand end of the toolbar which will take you directly to the settings where you define all your cutting conditions for material and thickness).
FastPATHTM saves programming time by automatically determining the best cutting paths based on the settings that you designate. FastPATHTM has artificial intelligence which means it automatically determines the inner-most contours and sets them as the first cutting paths. It also has the uncanny ability to determine which holes to cut first to minimize torch movement. But most importantly, it can determine which type of lead-ins and where to place them on the profile of your parts. Blended entries and exits are added automatically. Complicated parts that used to take upwards of 30 minutes to path out manually only take about 30 seconds when using FastPATHTM . Kerf, cut direction, internals and externals determined. Path complex nests or an entire CAD nest with a single click of your mouse!
For multi-process systems, you can even select the order of processing. FastPATHTM is also able to save your settings for different plate styles. Obviously your lead-ins for 4 inch thick plate are going to be different than 1/4 inch plate. FastPATHTM will allow you to save and restore settings for various styles of plate with just a few mouse clicks.
