I know that wood routing and plasma cutting do not normally go hand in hand. I am planning on building a plasma machine, but until then; here is what I did:
I had a break in the sign making business for a few days so I made a replacment slat table for my normal MDF spoil board. I also made a floating head for the torch that replaced my normal router mount. Then it was just a matter of splicing into my Miller plasma cutter so that Mach 3 could turn the torch on/off. My router table is all steel and based on the JGRO design (don't try this with an MDF router). I am attaching a couple of before and after photos.
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Lessons learned:
1) never fire the torch until you have all the sawdust cleaned up.
2) THC is a requirement for anything less than 16 ga.
3) ACME thread without gear reduction just can't give you the speed you need for plasma cuts
4) I thought sawdust was a problem until the plasma dust and smoke started rolling...a water table would be nice.
5) Trust Weldtutor...he knows what he is doing.
6) Mach 3 and SheetCAM are must haves.

The cuts are excellent with hardly any slag to clean up. I will be using this machine to cut parts for my larger plasma table in the near future and then I will return this unit to wood routing capability.

Thanks again Weldtutor.:)

drafterman

I know that wood routing and plasma cutting do not normally go hand in hand. I am planning on building a plasma machine, but until then; here is what I did:

Nice workable conversion you have done Drafterman. :) It looks great!

Those clean cuts you are getting will be appreciated for the larger dedicated plasma table you will be building.

If you could squeeze in even a couple inches of a water tray with slats inside it would cut down a lot of the plasma smoke/dust.

Keep having fun. Glad to help.
WT

I like your work supports, never seen anything like that. They look like they'll do a good job with minimal blowback.

Yeah, steel slats were too expensive to waste on this machine, so I used some old scrap 1/4" pins that I had laying around (you could also use bolts). They work well and give you similar support to "sawtooth" cut slats.

Make a Water Table for your Plasma, you won't regret it :)
Today I cleaned my Water Table out for the first time in about 2 months.
I have only used my machine about 1 day each week.
I emptied about 5 lbs of horrible thick black segiment out of the tank, which would have ended up as Plasma dust in the air :eek:
My water table only has approx. 3" of water in it, and it does catch a lot of dust.
I am looking at building Mark 2, which willl have greater water capacity, and also a air/water tank to be able to raise and lower the water level to retreive small parts, and also to be able to clean the tank out easily.

Andy