Plasma table + 4th axis

I understand the power ic is gone. Such a bummer amd i hope the brilliant guys behind the project find a way to get around that. I am lucky enough to have a friend who has some drives i can buy. I understand from him that they work great and interface with linuxcnc via smartserial really well. Im excited to try them.

I am plugging away on the design of this machine. Funny how much i underestimated the hours needed for the design.

Another question for the forum, i have seen mention of cutting parts fully submerged but not much info on why. Do any of you fill the water table high enough to do this or is it rare. If so whats the main reason?

chrisfischer wrote:

Another question for the forum, i have seen mention of cutting parts fully submerged but not much info on why. Do any of you fill the water table high enough to do this or is it rare. If so whats the main reason?

I do, but not always. When using the machine every day i fill the table above the material about 1-3 cm, it is a nice showcase, less metal dust and less ultraviolet radiation. Does not last long though as it evaporates quickly if used all day in about two days it gets under the material level.

Interesting. That is even deeper than I thought. I originally had the water level stop at the bottom of the material. I will add another inch or so. Thanks for the reply.

Here is a teaser of the design so far. Im sure a fair amount will still change.

-5x5 table
-4th axis on the side big enough for 6x6 square tube (so far)
-I havent drawn this but I plan on indexing a full size tube for cutting every 5 feet so I can process a whole tube in one setup. 
-scribe, sharpie, crosshair green laser, and hyperthem mini torch on the z axis (I plan to add a bolt on 20w diode laser someday... maybe)
-4 to 6 inches of z travel (going back and forth... probably 6)
-hypertherm 45xp with finecut consumables and shop air
-rotating ball nuts on x and y
-carbon fiber tubes for linear bearing on the z axis (provided I can get the od more precise using an od grinder... total experiment)
-chicago scribe and retractable sharpie deployed by steppers (as opposed to stuffmadehere's pneumatic example)
-torch collision detection
-designed for 2g acceleration (this is arbitrarily high and I am pretty loosely estimating things other than mass - like friction)
-mesa 7i96, thcad torch height control, thcad ohmic sensing, stmbl drives, 60ST-M01930 servo motors
-QTPlasmaC, touch screen monitor, sheetcam
-$6k budget

This machine will help me take on job shop work as well as prototype designs for a business I am building to manufacture motion simulators. 



 

Forgot to mention, if you do not use the machine daily, avoid dipping the torch i water as it will rust pretty quickly.
I have about 10 seconds of post flow on all plasma sources, so not an issue really, but shuting down the plasma while it is still wet is not good as it stops the air drying the torch.
Just leave it on untill the post flow stops.