15m Industrial Plasma Cutter

Jarman wrote: but a 7i76E and THCAD are sufficient aren't they?

They don't need anything else?

They do need other things, like, power supply, wires, drives, motors, someone to put all that together and a lot of coffee !

I just wish they came with more time!

I'm struggling to see how I can feasibly make the z axis myself in the time frame. I've been looking at some prebuilt z axis stages but they are all from China and most have a 2 week lead time. Does anyone have experience ordering from these chinese cnc companies? Do they tend to deliver when they say? From previous experience with even local manufacturing companies I doubt it.

I'm not too concerned about the complicated stuff like electronics, software and motors. It's the lead times and basic machining that's got me worried. I have to stop in 4 weeks no matter how far I've got so I'm wondering if it's worth investing all this money in a gamble that I can get it built.

I'm also wondering if I can throw together an extremely simplified version eg. no variable z axis height/magnetic breakaway or any of that. And just accept that the quality won't be fantastic, but at least it will get done.

Anything useful here?
www.zappautomation.co.uk/machines/individual-parts.html

Or maybe this, you could have it tomorrow with Prime:
www.amazon.co.uk/KKmoon-Stainless-Actuat...ission/dp/B07HGS6PS1

And for the magnetic breakaway:
www.amazon.co.uk/Valeny-Magnetic-Buttons...andbag/dp/B07PY6LD31

$$ The Velox Z axis for plasma is nearly ready to go. Just add a NEMA 23 stepper some switches and a torch mount and you are ready to go.

www.veloxcncrouters.com/xz-za-series

John

Jarman wrote: I'm also wondering if I can throw together an extremely simplified version eg. no variable z axis height/magnetic breakaway or any of that. And just accept that the quality won't be fantastic, but at least it will get done.

That is a big no no, you will regret that during testing and tuning, before you make any usable cuts.
There are plenty of options, and you can build your own floating head in half a day, using drawer slides with ball bearings. Built plenty of them and they do work perfectly ( well untill some of that fine dust gets to those balls, then some major leaning is needed ) granted you turn their slots to the back side to prevent the above. Find a hydraulic repair shop, there must be one near you ( there are 2 in my town with 110000 people ), they have shafts at any diameter in 6 meter lengths, so get 1 meter of 14 or 16 or 20mm shaft at around 30 to 40 euro, should be enough for a Z axis plus floating part ( floating part needs about 1 cm of movement, just enough to trigget the floating switch or sensor ), find a shop for bearings as they must have linear bearings for round rails/shafts, get 8 of them at 5 to 7 euro a piece, and a switch, 4 aluminium plates at 10 to 15 by 4 to 6 cm with 3 holes on them, allthread or a 20 to 30 cm long M6 or M8 or M10 screw, and in a day you have a fully functional Z axis with probe.
That makes 2 options, both cheap and very quick with hand tools and a bit of persistance.
And just in case you think that drawer slides are to thin or to flimsy, get two of them and mount them at 90 degrees to each other, you will be amazed at how stiff that becomes.

Hello everyone, just an update.

I'm in the process of building my z axis following a similar design to this:

www.veloxcncrouters.com/xz-za-series

My design will look a bit like this:



The idea is that the floating head is on the same set of rails as z travel, using a spring loaded system (the plate with floating head attached is only connected to the bottom 2 linear rails and can therefore slide over the top 2 rails and trigger a pnp switch).






I am now wondering about the x axis that the z axis sits on. If I want 1.25m of x axis travel how much extra space should I allow for sensors/switches etc. on either side? Do I need home/limit on both sides? And how much should the X axis overlap the Y axis on each side? Just the width of the linear rails it runs on or more?

Thanks.