I haven't used the cutmaster plasma, but the Hypertherm seems to be the weapon of choice for cnc applications. Thermacut also makes silver enhanced consumables available for the hypertherm MAX units, which pretty much tells the story: If there are aftermarket enhancements for the torch, its probably the system to choose. Hard to find a good deal on the machine equipped with the machine torch online- everyone seems to be selling the hand torch version, so I'm buying mine from the local boys. Better that way if it happens to break.
I used 12 pitch 20 degree rack for my main X gantry drive, and 16 pitch 20 degree for my Y. The Y is lighter for the fact its moving a far smaller load, and the 16 pitch saved me a bit of needed clearance on the gantry. I used 560 Oz. inch slo syn steppers for my X and Y, with a 3.75 :1 reduction running down to a 1 inch pinion for both the drives, 12 teeth on the X, 16 on the Y, and the X is a MASSIVE 1.25 inch wide cast iron timing belt system, coupled through a 1 inch diameter titanium hollow shaft to dual pinions tied directly on both sides to the gantry assembly. One of the racks is adjustable to allow for squaring. The whole gantry with motors weighs about 30 pounds.
The Y axis uses smaller timing pulleys- about 3/8 inch wide belt, but again steel pulleys and rack/pinion. The system should be able to run up to 600 IPM, but I wont know until I get a chance to test it.  |