Rods "Spaceship" Scratch built Plasma Cutter build

Make the slats slimmer, thank me later !

tommylight wrote: Make the slats slimmer, thank me later !

I'm lost Tommy. Lower you mean? They are only 5mm wide.

rodw wrote:

tommylight wrote: Make the slats slimmer, thank me later !

I'm lost Tommy. Lower you mean? They are only 5mm wide.

Yup yup, 50mm is enough, 60 would be best in your case.
As you have it, the moment the fired torch goes near the edges you end up with 1/4 of the water on the floor.
Always make it you you can submerge the material and still cut without to much splatter.
Mine are always 100 to 120mm deep, slats at 70 to 80, so i can put a 20mm plate and still cut it submerged.
If the machine is used a lot, that also causes the nozzles to last longer and piercing does not affect them as much.
Have a look at the big industrial plasma systems, they all cut submerged.
Oh, BTW, never switch off the plasma cutter after submerged cutting as the water might remain inside the nozzle and cause it to rust, just give it a moment for the air to dry it.
And 5mm thick slats are to much and will impair the cutting a lot, never more than 3mm.

since slats are consumables thinner slats lower your operation costs as well. both the lasers we have at work have the shark tooth design for slats too. lets the material from the cuts exit better and helps the slag stay off the parts a little better.

Just to clarify, my slats are 3mm thick. I had some issues with the pan after full assembly becasue a weld was leaking. After I got that fixed, I ended up with something like this.



I inverted the slats and even cut slots for clearance against the drop in frame for two slats after all of these years. The main issue with water loss is when the torch is parked at the end of a cut. This should be able to be resolved just by setting some parking values in my sheetcam post processor so its parked in the centre of the table until post flow is over.

Whilst having slats sunk lower than the sides might be OK on a full sized table, with one this size, I need to be able to index the sheet to cut from a full size 1200 x 2400 mm sheet which I will still be able to do with this tray.

I have had a couple of errors with a stuck ohmic sense signal due to water in the nozzle so I have set the Plasmac torch Pulse to be 3 seconds long. Plasmac pauses on the error so its a matter of waiting out the post flow, hitting pulse and resuming. I think this would be solved if I pulsed the torch to start the post flow air before starting the first cut. Just getting used to a water table I think!

Seeing Tommy's nice perspex cover has spurred me on so when I get a chance, I'm going to build a cover for the Z axis assembly. Making a cover for the ball screw will be easy but extending it to cover the X axis motor out to one side may be a challenge!

I might even get the table painted! Or maybe even send it out for powdercoating.

Mine got painted today, mat black ! Not liking it so far.

Yeh, Everything I get powdercoated is black! I was thinking a bright blue really. The other Idea I had was to get the laser cut plates that I have mounted the racks and rails to zinc plated. My thinking was this would not really alter the dimensions in the way that powder coat would. But today I heard the zinc later had a massive melt down and have to replace their whole plating line. They said their Chrome Plating line was still operational but I thought that might be over the top!

rodw wrote: They said their Chrome Plating line was still operational but I thought that might be over the top!

Just add some spinning rims !!!

tommylight wrote:

rodw wrote: They said their Chrome Plating line was still operational but I thought that might be over the top!

Just add some spinning rims !!!

Or chrome plated drawer slides for the ultimate Tommy built bling!

Earlier in the week, I was visited by Clive S on the southern leg of his world tour. His very patient wife Mary let us discuss the pros and cons of Plasmac and review the Spaceship before lunch.

After Lunch, Mary gave me a bunch of flowers for my wife who was unable to join us. Then I guided them onto the main road out of town so they could find their way on to Warwick and Stanthorpe about 2.5 hours from Brisbane on their way back to Sydney and Melbourne. Clive, please let Mary know they are still thriving in the Brisbane heat!

Tomorrow I fly to Shanghai for a trade show and I think it will be a shock becasue its been 30+ deg C here and it will be down to 10-12 deg C there.

Anyway, I have Skunkworks Estop tutorial to fill in one hour of the 10 hour flight!