Hypertherm powermax 85

Etkoehn wrote:

I was struggling with qtplasmac. I could not toggle the estop,

This reminds me, why is this still the default in QtPlasmaC?
Pretty sure i have mentioned this before, i need to edit the hal file to be able to use the machines.
Using the E-stop is a button feature, configs made with PncConf.

1. It is enough, but the Z axis and motors must be mounted as near to rail as possible, otherwise vibrations...
2. it is usable, just do not expect "racing" accelerations, plasma works even with quite low accelerations for anything thicker than 2mm
3. Inkscape free and waht i use, SheetCam not free what others here use.
4. Not usually if the box is big enough, using a fan help during summer time, fan on the bottom of the case pushing air in, exhaust on the sides or bottom.

Rod, JoCo has motors and reductions way to high, so all the weight is at the very top.
Keeping weight balanced and as close to the rail improves things a lot, but physical constraints might not allow that always.
And the most important part, to what the rail is bolted to, weight will bend that part way before a HiWin or NSK or THK 15 rail will move.
I have done some tests with HGR25 and a 4mm thick walled square 80x80mm metal profile will bend a lot with 15kg weight at 50cm from the rail when that rail is bolted to the middle of that profile, less so when bolted near edges.
Have a look at my machines, all have rails at or near the top of the aluminium profile and the Z axis is mounted so the carriage/rail is roughly at the center mass of the Z.
Given enough acceleration, everything bends and vobles, it is just a balance of several factors to limit that.
A while back i had a small cnc router with over 40kg cantalivered on a THK45 long carriage, rail bolted to a 6mm thick 200x100 metal profile, it was very usable as accelerations were low, but moving Z axis from near the rail to the hanging side would dip 0.3mm just from weight. That carriage can handle over 20 tons, so the rail and carriage can hande that easily, everything else can not. I did step on the hanging part, it moved a lot but the rail and carriage did not care at all that i added 86kg sideways to it!
To be on the safe side, use 2 of HGR15 rails, as Rod said.

First, sorry but i will never learn gauges, they are backward.
I can do inches, troy ounces, yards, feet, square feet, miles, nautical miles, air miles, etc in my head easily as they are related to something somehow, gauges are not.
Although i have a hunch it is inch/gauge so in this case 25.4/18=1.4mm ? So is it?
Moving on, yes you can use 27kg gantry to cut 1.4mm (if that is 18 gauge) thick material but you will have to lower the cut current and adjust the cut speed accordingly. The main issue will be with piercing, not cutting, so no pierce delay at all.
Here is a 23KG gantry cutting at 12m/m (472 inches/minute) using two Nema 23 steppers with 1:3 reduction.
Nema 23 with some reduction would have been better only due to vibrations.
As for cabinet, 60 degree C is all good, above it it tends to cause issues with the PC as usually the processor will be nearly 100 and might start to throttle down. The rest will be usually OK up to 70 or more, i have seen 86 and everything was working just fine, but that is pushing it to far.