A wire cannot lift.
So the route has to be one stroke
Milling software plans jumps between contours. A hot wire has none: it enters the block once, cuts everything on the way, and comes back out. This works that route out from your drawing — and tells you what it costs before anything is switched on. Free, in full. No sign-up.
- Free, no account.
- Every drawing and every program is free from the first open — no sign-up, no licence, no seat.
- Nothing is uploaded.
- The drawing is read and the program written in your browser. Your work stays on your machine.
- One continuous stroke.
- Every line cut once, back to the corner it started from — the route a wire can actually travel.
- Played back before it is cut.
- Watch the wire take the route at sixty times its own speed. A block of foam costs more than a minute of looking.
- Measured in millimetres.
- Curves flattened to a stated accuracy, the length of cut and the time it will take, before the file is saved.
- The dialect that already runs.
- Copied line for line from programs cut on these machines: nothing added, nothing clever, nothing the controller has not seen.
What it does
The three questions a wire asks of a drawing
None of them come up with a router, and all of them come up before the first cut.
One stroke, every line once
- Enters at the corner, leaves at the corner
- No rapids, no retracts — there is no lifting a wire
- A drawing that is already one stroke is left exactly as drawn
Features
More than a DXF turned into coordinates
Read the drawing, work out the route, look at it, and take the file the machine already understands.
The drawing
What goes in.
- DXF, as AutoCAD writes it
- SVG — paths, polylines, rectangles, circles and arcs
- A program that has already been cut, read back to be looked at
- Curves flattened to an accuracy you state in millimetres
The route
How the wire travels.
- Every line cut exactly once, in one continuous stroke
- Lines that two parts share are cut once, not twice
- Ends welded together where a drawing has hairline gaps
- A drawing already laid out as one stroke is passed through untouched
The warnings
What the drawing will cost.
- Every place the wire must double back, and how far
- Every part that cannot be reached without a slit through foam
- A path that runs off the table, or does not come home
- The length of cut and the time it takes at your feed
The program
What the machine gets.
- G21 G17 G90, one feed, M3 and M5 — as your files already are
- Millimetres, absolute, four decimals, no rapids and no arcs
- The heat left alone: it is set by hand on these machines
- Table presets from 1200 × 1000 to 2000 × 1200
How it works
Four steps to a program
The longest of them is watching the route play back, and it is the one worth doing.
Open the drawing
A DXF from AutoCAD, an SVG from anywhere, or a program you have already cut.
Pick the machine
The table it will run on and the feed you cut at. The drawing is brought to the corner of the table.
Look at the route
Play it back. Watch where the wire doubles back and where it has to cut through to reach something.
Take the file
One .nc in the dialect your controller already runs. Straight to the USB stick or the pendant.
Who it is for
Anyone cutting foam with a wire
The machine is simple. Getting a drawing onto it is the part that takes an afternoon.
Packaging inserts
A seat for a product inside a rigid box, cut from a block and glued in place.
Crate and case linings
Layered foam for a shipping case, each layer a profile cut straight through.
Signs and letters
Big letters and shapes for an event, cut in an hour rather than ordered in a week.
Models and props
Profiles for architectural models, film props and displays, at the size they were drawn.
Moulds and formers
A shape to lay up over, cut to the line and sanded to fit.
Anyone with a DXF
A drawing that already exists and a machine that wants a program. This is the bit in between.
FAQ
Good to know
Is it really free?
Yes. Every drawing and every program is free from the first open — no account, no licence and no seat.
Does my drawing get uploaded?
No. It is read and the program written in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.
Which machines is this for?
Two-axis hot-wire cutters that take plain G-code — the ones driven from a USB controller or a DSP pendant. The dialect is copied from programs already cut on such machines: G21 G17 G90, one feed, M3 and M5, millimetres and absolute coordinates.
Does it control the wire temperature?
No, and deliberately. On these machines the heat is set by hand on the power supply, so the program says nothing about it beyond the M3 and M5 your files already carry.
What is a slit, and why does it warn about them?
A wire cannot lift. To reach a part that touches nothing else, it has to cut its way in through solid foam — that channel is a slit, and it stays in the material. Where the drawing forces one, the tool shows where and how long; often moving a part a few millimetres so it shares a wall removes it altogether.
Does it compensate for the width of the cut?
Not yet. The wire melts a channel wider than itself, so a part cut on the line comes out smaller by about half that channel on each side. Most shops draw with that in mind; kerf compensation is the next thing on the list.
Can I check a program I already have?
Yes. Open the .nc itself: it is read back, measured and drawn, and you can play the route through to see what the machine will do with it.
The drawing is done. The route is arithmetic.
Open it, watch the wire take it, and take away a file the machine already understands.