CNC Plasma cutters, DIY, building info and guide

rodw wrote:

[Anyway, it will be pretty trivial with mesa cards providing enough outputs. The beauty of LInuxcnc is its so extensible. Here is all the code you need for 2 zones utilising a 2 position flap so 4-6 zones would not need much more.

pin in float position "Motion signal for Axis position";
pin out bit trigger "True if downdraft segment should be triggered";
param rw float cutover "Absolute axis coordinate above which triggers zone change";
...

You could have just used the "comp" HAL component, or maybe "wcomp"

That is quite easy to avoid when building a new machine, just hide the belts behind rails or frame. Not easy on an existing machine.
Although they can work without a hitch even without cleaning for over 3 years and not covered at all! I had such a customer!
Having them near the torch is a no no.
I do not know what Xcarve uses as linear slides, but those chinese rollers on aluminium extrusion will be done with inside of a week of heavy usage on a plasma machine.

Been long enough !
Sorry for the delay but the friend that was providing parts for me from Germany is back in Kosovo so i am having difficulties sourcing parts, but at least now i order a lot more so i gathered a nice pile of Mesa boards, Lam Technologies and other types of drives, lots of power supplies, and finaly yesterday got a delivery of 6 meter long round supported rails at 16, 20 and 30mm with respective carriages. Took 2 months to have them here! Next shipment will be here a week after i order, so that is one less problem.
Now i have to do some calculations and some drawings to first check how much i can squeeze with what i already got then order a lot of metal profiles ( IF i can manage to gather some money as i am almost broke! ) .
I have :
Linear round supported rails:
16mm 6 meters plus 12 carriages with holders and 16 without holders.
20mm 6 meters plus 12 carriages with holders.
30mm 15 meters plus 15 carriages with holders.
Linear rails square
Hiwin HGR25
1 piece 118cm long
1 piece 78cm long
1 piece ~55cm long
1 single carriage.

I need to build:
1 small machine at 2X1 meter cut area.
1 medium machine at 3X2 or 3X1.5 meters cut area.
1 big machine at 6X2 meters cut area.

The big machine will use the above mentioned 30mm supported rails for the Y axis, meaning having to cut the 3 meter piece and but join it to the 6 meter ones to get 7.5 meters of rails on both sides, planing on making the gantry very wide at 60 to 100cm, so that will end up with 6.5 to 6.9 meters of cut area.
Now comes the tricky part, i would like to use the HiWin for the X axis, but, but joining square linear rails in a "hand tools" work shop is a no go, so any ideas are very welcomed. This would leave the 20mm and 16mm ones for the other 2 machines to play with, but no matter how i look at it, i will need some more rails. Luckily i have a local source for unsupported round rails ( local hydraulic equipment service ) and a local bearings shop that has a stock of carriages for round rails and rack and pinion module 2 just for me !
Since this is a joint venture, can someone please do a drawing or a render or a scrible of how a plasma machine should look like as a finished product. Not the standard ones. It has to look as a piece of art, not a square box. Even some nice decals will do, if it contains the words: Linuxcnc and Mesa, and maybe, just maybe a company name ( i do own localy " Kosova Hardware" and " PC Kosova ", the first is usable but to long ).
As i have access to a lot of local busineses, printing on anything, plastic sheets, and some other stuff is easy, good paint job is very hard so i have to use car repair shops that costs a lot, but i have to go that route.
More to come.
Regards,
Tom.

pl7i92 wrote:

there are nice sets for 1500mm mashines on the market
also very good working 1300mm square rails cheep ballscrew sets

Looked at them, they do look ( and are ) cheap untill you try to order them, then you get the 935$ shipping so they are not cheap anymore. And the quality is really terible for the ballscrews. They are usable, but not anywhere near some NSK's i got.

pl7i92 wrote:

BUT what i think there is a individuell need
as here we got sheeds at 2500x1500
and also low standard at 2000x1250
so a need to fit tables

Here the standard sheet is 2000X1000mm, then 2500X1250, 3000X1250 and 6000X2000. Rarely there are 3000X1500mm.

No ideas ? Drawings ? Scribles ? Nothing ???
Oh well, been thinking about how to mount the rails so that they are covered completely to protect from fine dust and debree while working around the table, came up with an idea and have some chicken scratches i made on the phone ( the Galaxy Note pen is such a nice thing ), so i will try to upload that now.


Not much to look at buy a rough idea.
Regards,
Tom