CNC Plasma build 1.2x1.2

[WillyInBris]

So a bit further today, ordered the 80/20 yesterday at 11am arrived this morning at 10am was actually really surprised so I quickly slapped it together and weighed it up and I think
I am going to come in at about 35kg with the actuator in its current form it comes in at 29kg, I guess i have to add the reductions motors as well as torch so I am thinking 35kg all up sent an email to PH to see what he thinks.

Gantry.jpg

Keith what speeds on the thinnest material you can handle on your unit?

These are the Speeds recommended by hypertherm.
MildSteelCutSpeeds.jpg

[beefy]

Willy, I completely stuffed up on my build. In my efforts to over-engineer I built the gantry too tall in case I ever wanted to fit something underneath. Too top heavy now.

Then I used chain and sprockets which compounded the problem. There are 2 ways to use chain and sprockets. One is where the chain is stationary and is effectively acting like a rack, that's the much preferred way. The crap way like I did, is to have the chain moving. Now 2.5m of chain stretched horizontally in mid air is a great recipe for chain slap, no matter how tight it is tensioned.

Well, suffice to say I'm a lot wiser now, and when I have the cash I'm going to spend more $$ and redo the X axis and gantry completely.

My cutting speeds therefore have to be kept well below "shake speed", so I'm taking measures to keep things under about 1500mm/min. My T80 hand torch cuts at a much lower speed than my Duramax machine torch, so I have to swap over on thinner materials and use the hand torch. I've actually just built an overhead swing arm that I can quickly hang the hand torch cable on, while the machine torch cabling stays in the cable chain.

Talking about cut speed, cable chains, etc, having everything in a cable chain looks nice and neat but your are adding weight to the gantry. Having a lot more experience and knowledge under my belt now, I think any future builds will be done with an overhead swinging cable carrier (like Plasmacam and others). Cheaper, simpler, faster cable insertion/removal, and gantry weight reduction. That is going to allow higher speed/accel/decel if you get into faster cut speeds.

Keith.

[WillyInBris]

Ok so parts ordered from CNCrouterParts Corye was quite helpful, both Y&X will be R&P and should be here by the end of next week.

Keith have you tried doing corrugated steels at all with your THC or is it not possible thinking I will go with the CandCNC version THC and put a post up on their board.

But i am going to send proma a msg as well.

[Greolt]

I asked the local agent for a price on 1.5 metres of this extrusion. To be used for a gantry rail together with some dual vee bearings that I have.

http://www.pbclinear.com/IVTAAG?tab=ProductOverview

$425 plus tax !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is just a 50mm square extrusion with integrated vee rails. I think they might believe it is gold plated.

[WillyInBris]

I asked the local agent for a price on 1.5 metres of this extrusion. To be used for a gantry rail together with some dual vee bearings that I have.

http://www.pbclinear.com/IVTAAG?tab=ProductOverview

$425 plus tax !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is just a 50mm square extrusion with integrated vee rails. I think they might believe it is gold plated.

lol do you have a Plasma cutter yet I had price difference of up to $1200 with four different quotes for the one I purchased.

[Greolt]

lol do you have a Plasma cutter yet I had price difference of up to $1200 with four different quotes for the one I purchased.

I am using a cheap Chinese cutter. I think it will do what I want, Time will tell.

Edited to remove my verbose ramblings.

If I were to be building a table for business purposes I would not hesitate to buy a Hypertherm. They are clearly the best option out there. You will not be sorry for going that way.

Did you get the machine torch at the same time?

[WillyInBris]

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[WillyInBris]

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Hi Greolt yes the machine I ordered comes with a machine torch and voltage divider ready to go on that side of things I didnt bother wit a hand torch as I will buy another unit if I require one.


Lots to think about over the next week whilst I wait for parts, I found another THC that interests me as well and I will grab all the info and post it back in this thread.
One of the issues on the Zone is that there is a lot of differing opinions on THC's I really need to read up and work out what I want to spend my $$ on.

So this list stand s at and by price.

Candcnc, integrates with mach 3.
Neuron, works to a point with mach3 also Stand alone unit.
Proma, Mach3 as well as stand alone version.

So have sent some msgs off will post what comes back.

[WillyInBris]

Well update CandCnc don't get back to emails nor do they reply to posts on their forums so they obviously cant be bothered with taking my $$ and i will just leave it at that with them.

i received a reply from neuron and looking at $750 for their THC but could only find one user for a review.

So I am left with Proma 150 plenty of people using it over on the Zone and works with both Mach and Linux from what I have read its fine with 2mm and up and that's probably the thinnish side of things for me anyway.

I also was swayed by Linux CNC's interface I have been playing with this for the last couple of days whilst I wait on stuff and have been really surprised how far it has come over the years so easy to set up via a wizard as well.
Anyway looks like the Proma will be cost effective to start with, so have placed an order.

Edit/

just had a PM from Tom very much the Linux Proma guru on the zone, has installed on plenty of units and has it running stable on Linux so going to give that a shot (fallbackt o mach3).
Placed order for proma THC

[Greolt]

From a kind of selfish point of view, I am glad you chose Proma to try.

I will be interested in how it goes for you.

Does Linux mean that you go for the SD model rather than the 150?

[WillyInBris]

From a kind of selfish point of view, I am glad you chose Proma to try.

I will be interested in how it goes for you.

Does Linux mean that you go for the SD model rather than the 150?

Na the 150, the SD is more the stand alone using mach3/linuxcnc as more like a plotter whereas the 150 has a little more integration how much of a difference that makes in the end
I am unsure but I am happy to go with Toms recommendations.

[WillyInBris]

So having a think about stuff last night my main worry is as Keith pointed out is moisture especially in QLD, Oh the humidity lol, now I am thinking if i can get a hold of something like this and use the coil and maybe the fan if required it could probably work.

$_20.JPG

So route air through condenser then through another tank then into a receiver?

I really want to protect the consumables as much as possible.

[WillyInBris]

Hey guys another quick update changed the size of the table and have made it wider and a bit longer just in case had plenty of time waiting on parts and as of Monday I should have just about everything I need to complete it.
20150626_131929.jpg
Getting power to the shed as well as upgrading the supply has also been a bit of fun had to be done for the Hypertherm but something I was well aware of and budgeted for.

So over the next week I should really get a lot done, just a few pics to keep you interested really pleased in the quality of the Parts from the states..

20150626_150132.jpg20150626_150210.jpg20150626_150219.jpg

[WillyInBris]

Well last week was a right off everyone came down with a bug so just did a lot of reading and research etc but got moving today on things in between washing loads lol.
Not sure why but when ever the wife is home and looking after the kids the washing seems to double!

Tonight I am going to get in trouble after chopping up one of her chopping boards lol but that's life this is only an intermediate measure until I get to the the Alu shop again.

So both sides are now complete had to pad them out a bit as you can see and that's what I used the chopping board for.
So that's it for today will chuck the motors (380oz) on and see what the acceleration is like, the good thing about these mounts is that they can take both Nema 24 and 34 so If I need to upgrade it should be little hassle.
RPSetup.jpg

Keith, question if your still around how deep should I make the water table.

[WillyInBris]

Oh what a day lol started with all good intentions and it went downhill from me getting out of bed.

Fell down the Stairs broke my coffee mug lol lucky nothing else.

Wired up the motors on the x axis and set up the drives again hooked up to and gave it a test and all good then one of the drives got out of wack,I spent two bloody hours checking everything on mach etc only to find out that I hadn't done up the bloody grub screws on that pulley.

So after sorting that out and putting the drive back together I gave it a run again and all good then suddenly that drive on the same side started to chatter, thought I had stuffed the grub screw so took it all apart but was all fine so I kept looking an hour later I found a loose wire connection on the stepper drive tighten that up and all good was a happy chappy running nice and smooth only at 3m a min but the motors etc aren't even set up properly (still set up for 269 oz) just wanted to see some movement!