just another plasma build and then some :)

one other thing i happen to come across was a bolted frame vs welded in vibration dampening. i seen something about bolted frames having better qualities in that respect? i have no idea if it's true or not but i will see sooner or later.

ideally i would like to see if i can end up with a few different head heads to attach to this table for different processes. so this build will end up routing and possibly light gantry milling and then onto plasma just because the first two are low investment compared to a plasma unit.

i think once i get the table top frame work solid the gantry would do well since it's pretty solid despite being aluminum. my gantry is probably close to 200 lbs and i have the motors to handle that sort of work as well.

if light milling works well i am no longer limited to pierce thickness and can do much thicker work. i would like to do a zoned vacuum table in aluminum and have a removable water table for the plasma end when i get to it.

this is not a light weight build at all i should be well over 2,000 lbs minus the water table part of it when i get done.

if nothing else this whole thing should be entertaining at least

thefabricator03 wrote: Sure would make it easy to get a flat pack made and sent to you from China. Assembly Required!!

Did someone mention China! I'm there right now but I think a flat pack plasma might be a bit beyond my carry on luggage limit!

I'm in Shanghai for an automotive trade show. Spent the last 2 days walking and still have not got around all of the 6000 exhibitors.

that's OK. like i said i have multiple plans for different uses so i would never find a pre made kit to equal the train wreck of ideas floating about in my head so your off the hook on smuggling anything out of the country besides i doubt they have WiFi in the camps so the community here would miss you

machinedude wrote: that's OK. like i said i have multiple plans for different uses so i would never find a pre made kit to equal the train wreck of ideas floating about in my head so your off the hook on smuggling anything out of the country besides i doubt they have WiFi in the camps so the community here would miss you

Plus they fingerprinted and photographed every foreigner as we entered the country. Pretty amazing place.

i'll take your word for it and just admire from afar internet has all kinds of pictures that will do just fine for me

so you see people putting air drills on Plasma so i figured i would make gantry mill head to mount for large work from a mini mill spindle i had sitting around doing nothing first stab at it was not that great since the spindle center line was to far off the Z axis so i got creative and spun the entire thing 180 degrees and cut that distance in half so it now sits about 4" off the bearing blocks for the Z axis.

not sure how well it will work but figured i would see if i could get it to work for something useful i had this on a T slot fame machine and got it to cut around 28 IPM with about 1/16 step over in aluminum but was not happy with the light T slot frame.i think this spindle will do better on a decent frame with some weight to it. it was free so might as well play around with it and see if i can make use of it.

Thats pretty cool.

Can wait to see it in action!

this spindle has the speed range for mild steel cutting and i think it might work in a mild steel for some stuff as well. you see a lot of people try to tackle steel with a high speed spindle for wood all the time and they never do well this might be a solution since it will have a high and low range to get some proper speeds for steel and heavy enough bearings as well.

re worked a few things to see if i could give this thing the best chance of working well and after spending another day messing with it it's a little closer to being something useful but i think the weak link is the T slot extrusion beam across the table. i had the Z axis completely off the machine and had it in a vise on the bridgeport and that end is solid. i get some deflection once everything is on the cross beam. i have one other thing i could try to make the cross beam more solid and i am sure it would help some. only down side is adding more weight to the gantry in the process.

weight is not an issue with the mini mill head i had it going up and down the axis with a cordless drill with the clutch on the lowest setting and it work fine here with no issues there.

the other thing i was thinking about was the fill the hollow voids in the T slot cross beam with epoxy granite. if this would be enough to fix the deflection it would have an added bonus of vibration dampening on top of that which would be a big plus for this kind of application. i know the T slot is going to resonate a lot as is. i doubt the little bit of cast iron on the spindle housing will dampen much.

i have played around with epoxy granite and it is pretty amazing how much it deadens resonance. the compression strength is about the same as concrete but the material only shrinks about a .001 (imperial) and .03 mm for you metric folks cool stuff