Set up your machine in SheetNest

Before you start

SheetNest writes the program your machine runs through a post processor: the piece that turns the cuts of a sheet into the machine's own code. With it go the machine's tools, which are its cutting conditions, each with its kerf.

SheetNest supports selected TRUMPF and Mazak laser cutting systems. Each supported machine has its machine package: one file with the post processor, the tool list and the machine's settings. We set it up on your account, and from then on it is there for you to download.

You need three things:

• SheetNest 2026 on a Windows computer. You download it from your account.
• Your sheetnest.io account: its email and its password.
• The machine package for your machine. If your account does not show it yet, ask about your machine.

1. Sign in

The first time it opens, SheetNest shows its license agreement and then the Sign in to SheetNest window. Type the Email and the Password of your sheetnest.io account and press Sign in. If you have no account yet, Create a free account opens the page to make one.

SheetNest remembers the account on that computer and does not ask again. It confirms the account with sheetnest.io whenever it has a connection, and it works up to 30 days without one. After 30 days without reaching sheetnest.io, the Confirm your account window opens: connect the computer to the internet and press Try again.

To use another account, open Help > Account > Sign Out…. SheetNest closes, and asks for the email and the password the next time it starts.

2. Download your machine package

Log in to your account on sheetnest.io. Under Your machines, each machine package assigned to your account has a Download button. The file's name ends in .snmachine. Save it wherever you keep your downloads: SheetNest makes its own copy when you add the machine.

A machine package works with the account it was assigned to. SheetNest has to be signed in with that account to open it.

3. Add the machine

1. In SheetNest, open Configure > Machines...
2. Press New. A machine called New machine joins the list.
3. Under Post processor, press ... and choose the .snmachine file you downloaded.
4. SheetNest fills in the machine from the package: its Name, the Extension and the Encoding its programs are saved with, its tools and its settings.
5. If the package brings more than one tool list, for example one in inches and one in millimetres, SheetNest asks which one your machine uses. Choose it and press OK.
6. Press Set as default if new jobs should start with this machine. The default machine has a green check mark.
7. Press OK to keep the machine. Cancel leaves the list as it was.

You can give the machine the name your shop calls it by. Leave the extension and the encoding as the package set them, unless your machine's control asks for others.

If SheetNest cannot take the package, it says why and changes nothing. The messages and what to do about each are further down.

4. Check the tools

Press Edit tools... to see the tools the machine came with. A tool is one cutting condition of the machine: what it cuts a given material and thickness with.

Every tool has a Name, a Tool number, a Kerf width and a Pierce clearance. Some machines show more: Feed rate, Pierce delay, Power, Pierce height, Plunge rate, Cut height, Pause at end of cut, Medium hole kerf and Small hole kerf. Which ones appear depends on the machine, so two machines can show different fields.

• Kerf width is the width of material the cut removes. SheetNest moves every cut half a kerf into the scrap, so a part comes out the size it was drawn. It decides the size of every part: cut a test part with each tool you use, measure it, and correct the value if the part is large or small.
• Pierce clearance is how far a pierce keeps from the edge of other parts and of the sheet. Leave it empty to use SheetNest's own rule.

What you change is yours. When a newer build of the machine package arrives, the values you left alone take the new ones and the values you changed stay as you set them.

5. Set the machine's settings

Edit settings... opens the settings of that machine: what your shop wants different from how the post processor comes. A machine package brings its own settings to start from. Change a value, press Save, close the editor and press OK in Machines. The settings are kept with the machine, and a newer build of the package does not change them.

Edit post... is off for a machine that came in a machine package: its post processor is not opened or edited.

6. Give the parts their tool

Each part is cut with one of the machine's tools, and you choose it in Parts and Sheets, before you nest:

• When you import parts, choose their Tool.
• To change it later, select the parts, edit them and choose another Tool.
• A stock sheet has its Tool too. Parts are nested on the sheets of their own tool.

One program cuts with one tool, so every part on a sheet has the same one. If a sheet's parts have no tool, or a tool the machine in use does not have, SheetNest says so and asks you to set it in Parts and Sheets and nest again.

7. Save the programs

With the nest done, the mode bar has four modes: Modify, Profiling, Verify and Compile. Open Compile:

1. Machine: the machine the programs are for. It starts on the default one.
2. Program name: the name of the files. It starts as the name of the project.
3. Folder: where they are saved. Press ... to choose it.
4. Read the program of the sheet on screen in the NC code tab.
5. Press Save programs.

Each sheet gets a file of its own. With one sheet the file has the program name; with several they are numbered, NAME_1, NAME_2 and so on. The extension and the encoding are the machine's, from Configure > Machines...

If the job has warnings they are in the Warnings tab, and SheetNest asks before it saves. It also asks before it writes over a file that is already there.

8. Check before you cut

Verify plays the cut back in the order the machine will make it. Watch a new machine's first sheets there, read the program, and check it at the machine before it runs. The programs you make are yours, and so is the check: SheetNest's license agreement leaves every program, setting and result to you before it runs on a machine.

When a newer build of your package arrives

A machine package can get a newer build, for example with a correction to its post processor or more tools. We tell you when yours has one. To take it:

1. Download it from your account, as in step 2.
2. In Configure > Machines..., select the machine, press ... and choose the new file.
3. Press OK.

The machine keeps its name. Its tools are brought up to date and keep what you changed: a tool you added or renamed stays, and a tool you deleted stays deleted. Your settings are not touched.

Working without a connection

Once you have signed in, SheetNest runs without internet, your machines included. It needs to reach sheetnest.io at least once every 30 days to confirm the account and what is assigned to it. A computer that stays offline longer shows the Confirm your account window when SheetNest opens, until it connects again.

Nothing of your drawings, nests or programs is sent. What SheetNest sends and keeps is in the privacy notice.

Messages and what to do

These are the messages SheetNest gives about a machine package, word for word.

Another machine

If your machine is not one we support yet, send us a few programs it already runs, tell us its make, its model and its control, and we tell you whether we can support it: ask about your machine.