My Newb Plasma Table Attempted Build

tommylight wrote:

dvn4life1972 wrote:

After 7 hours I cut this...the vid is for Tommy, he likes motion-pictures lmao!

And i do like motion pictures, i watch everything at 1.5X or 1.75X speed. Everything.

I much prefer written content becasue I can read about 10 x faster than I can listen to the same content. I have no idea what all the fuss is over with Audible!

tommylight wrote:

And i do like motion pictures, i watch everything at 1.5X or 1.75X speed. Everything.

Me too! Ever since Benny Hill I can't help myself!

My THCAD-5 arrived on Friday. I never did move the electronics into the bigger/nicer enclosure just yet as I was waiting for that. Plus, inspired by Rod's build pics, I want to get some Meanwell DIN mounted power supplies and really tidy everything up nicely. The ohmic hypersensing will be the next thing on this one.

I definitely need to upgrade my little 21gal compressor. It doesn't give me any trouble, but if I cut this whole thing it'll run nonstop. The table is running pretty much flawlessly though. I'm thinking of a 60gal twin-stage.

I have been having trouble with our large compressor that runs our workshop and the plasma, When my guys use any air tools when the plasma is cutting it stops the plasma. I have partially solved the problem but is not hooked up yet, another project.

Ha such really phenomenal gear compared to my little 21gal on wheels. Very nice, maybe I will have a nicer shop in the near future.

Before I brought the big girl I went through my Hypertherm 125 user manual and it said It required 260 LMP, I brought the below small unit and hooked it up and ran a sheet out of purlin cleats. The job goes for 3.5 hours. The small unit kept running the whole time and after about and hour and a half would not hold pressure. I think It over heated due the the constant demands. I returned the compressor for a full refund and decided to buy a decent unit.

www.gasweld.com.au/air-compressor-3-2-hp...ta65-3-cylinder-pump

we have a 25 HP screw compressor with two reservoir tanks that are about 125 gallons each. it does pretty good keeping up with the machining centers and what ever small air tools that get used on top of that. so for dealing with 10 milling machines 4 lathes and two lasers it does pretty well so far. i was impressed with how well it keeps up. i think that the lasers run mostly on nitrogen though so those probably don't count for to much air use.

screw compressors are a bit expensive but they work really well from what i have seen.

Yeah screw compressors are very nice, for one the size I needed to do everything would cost me $15k AUD. They also have the benefit that they dont generate much moisture so you dont need a large dryer. Dryers are not cheap for a good one.

i think they said ours cost around 10k so yes they can be expensive. we have the air dryer in the system as well. most commercial machines don't deal with water in the air supply very well. Plasma applications are no different. so if you are doing the volume of work to justify the extra cost a air drying system is money well spent to save you some headaches later on.