Bob's Plasmac Build

Bob, just curious now. Was there a reason to add the T slot extrusion? Why didn't you mount your rails and rack to the angle iron?

rodw wrote: Bob, just curious now. Was there a reason to add the T slot extrusion? Why didn't you mount your rails and rack to the angle iron?

Makes it easier to make adjustments and make everything square. I did one with angle iron mounted directly on frame for a router and it was really tough to make everything straight.

This is a plasma so it provides extra support for water bed.

Looking good.
Also waiting .... Well trying to find in Turkey of all places some 7 meter long rails, the round supported ones. I need 6 meters of travel as a minimum. Not looking good!!!

tommylight wrote: Looking good.
Also waiting .... Well trying to find in Turkey of all places some 7 meter long rails, the round supported ones. I need 6 meters of travel as a minimum. Not looking good!!!

wow, 7 meters. What are you building a railroad track?

A little more progress. Mockup control panel.

Looks good Bob. I wonder if its worth going with opto isolated relays rather than mechanical ones? I used the ones you have there and replaced most of them when I added ohmic sensing (becasue I had to by a pack of 5). The only one left disables the stepper drives on estop (Just becasue I've been lazy but I have the part here.).

rodw wrote: Looks good Bob. I wonder if its worth going with opto isolated relays rather than mechanical ones? I used the ones you have there and replaced most of them when I added ohmic sensing (becasue I had to by a pack of 5). The only one left disables the stepper drives on estop (Just becasue I've been lazy but I have the part here.).

Oh yeah. I forgot about that. I have a boatload of these already. I will use the optoisalator ones for the ohmic sensor and the I/o for the plasma. I always use two to follow machine-is-on for enabling drives and such. One for estop logic.

Good point. Thanks.

Also forgot panduit. Need to leave room for that.

Somewhere PCW suggested using the 7i76e Spindle on contacts for torch on which might save a relay. Of course that was after I built mine relay and all! I'll save it for when I run out of outputs!

Bob, I think I already mentioned it here somewhere, the client I built the rotaray plasma ( links to YouTube videos in the show your stuff section of this forum ) requested a 6X2meter cut area so I do have to leave some room and that makes it at least 7X2.5 meters. Chasing unicorns, or 7m rails !!!
Rod, I would highly suggest not using the spindle on directly wired to a plasma cutter, I am sure it is OK in most cases but I have seen a fair share of manufacturing cost cuts in all sorts of equipment.
Oh and Bob, you've been holding on us, what is that on the monitor? A new screen, or did I miss something somewhere???