Trailer mounted plasma cutter.

[LeeWay]

Has anyone built a plasma cutter using a trailer? I had been thinking about this for awhile. I've had a need for a trailer for some time. I also have an extreme need for a plasma cutter. The problem was that I would have to build a small addition to my shop. I have most of the materials and will start building the addition later this year, but really didn't want to wait that long for plasma.
Using a trailer seemed like a good solution for me.
I will make it so that the gantry is removable. I have about 12 feet of rack and three gears already. I am also currently building a mill and I intend to use the control box for both initially, so I will need identical motors for this as I have on the mill. I think all three motors can be mounted to the gantry for easy removal of the gantry and just plug the motors into the control panel when I swap between machines. These machines will both use Gecko's. My router that I built uses a Xylotex, which is okay, but a little on the small side.
This could effectively give me a portable cnc.
I just picked up the trailer this AM, so I really haven't worked out many details, but the way this trailer is made should make for a rather easy build. This is a 5' by 10' trailer.
I could leave the gantry in place and cover the whole trailer with a tarp. I will keep it covered without the gantry too. I didn't buy the stainless racks, so they will have to stay greased. I have plenty of spray on graphite grease like is used on forklifts. Not yet sure what type ways I'll use. They need to be able to run off the end though to make the gantry removable.
What are y'alls thoughts on this?

I will need to cover the bed with some sheet aluminum to keep it from burning. Cutting outside on pretty days sounds like a whole lot less mess to deal with as well.

[Torchhead]

Plan on mounting 4 crank-down jacks (one on each corner) to stabalize and level the trailer/machine. At one point when I lived in the city with a two car garage every large tool I owned was on wheels: Table saw, joiner/planner, bandsaws, etc. When I got my 12X36 lathe and Mill/drill Those ended up being stationary. Thankfully I moved to the country and built a 40 X 80 shop before the CNC bug hit me. Now, with all of the conventional tools and 4 CNC machines of different types (plus a paint booth and powdercoat oven) space is starting to be at a premium!. Looks like I may have to build a second floor deck before too long.

I don't know about the removable gantry. Seems like there would be a lot of setup involved. All of the electrical would need connectors, and connectors are potential troublespots.

Tom Caudle
www.CandCNC.com

[smilewizard]

I too have thought about this design, but then I always come back to the question why would I want a portable unit? What would I be doing in the feild that I wouldnt want the conveince of my shop? Several things that are road blocks to me personally. Safety - who is going to be around when I uses it? How do i create a barrier to protect peoples eyes and such. Good clean power, Air supply, as well as handling the material to be cut.

Having said that I deal mainly with 4 x 8 sheets so my applications are not really for the road. I agree with tom about leveling and personally have fears about bouncing a fairly precise peice of equipment down the road.

I am not trying to discourage you just throwing some questions, hoping that others will jump in and give guidance to issuses like these. I am very open minded and this may just be the forum that shows me what I need to go portable.

Andrew

[LeeWay]

Thanks Tom.
I knew I would have to mount some jacks on there. There isn't a level spot anywhere in my yard.
I don't have the full design worked out yet. With a removable gantry, all I would really need is three motor plugs, and a torch height control plug. These would all be on the gantry. I would mount home switches to the trailer, but would need some water proof switches. I actually used trailer couplings on my router for motor plugs. They work okay. I may decide to leave it on too and just keep it covered.

Since the gantry doesn't need to be built heavy, I am considering using unistrut for the rails. I would build my own trucks. Each one would be as wide as the gantry. Unistrut makes different trucks, but I have a bunch of bearings left from my router build. I would make the gantry at least 18" wide. This trailer is actuall 10'6" long on the top rail. This would give me a close to 9' cut. Probably 4'6" wide.
Thats good n plenty fer me.
I am thinking unistrut should be fine and as long as I make it adjustable like I did to my router, it should be easy enough to keep the kind of precision I am looking for. The strut will be bolted to some steel angle that will sit on top of the trailer rails. These too will have both height and side to side adjustment.
The strut will sit outside the rails. This is also where the rack will be. I would weld some angle on the inside of the frame to support the slats for the stock.
I just have a cheap 50 amp cutter. It said that I could hook it up to a THC. Anyone have any thoughts about getting my hands on this? Any pertinent threads I should see?

[Perp]

make sure to remove the wood or somehow keep the molten steel off of it or your whole rig may burn to the ground

[LeeWay]

Hi Andrew. Having a portable unit wasn't my initial goal. It just seems to have worked out this way because of time and space constraints. I did need a trailer. I have borrowed my neighbors half a dozen times in the past couple years. I have an old trailer that was a home made job from someone, but its not road worthy any longer. The frame of it was what I was initially going to use for my plasma. It has a 4' by 8' steel channel frame welded together. The cross bracing was treated lumber.
With this larger trailer, I am simply killing two birds with one rock.
If I decide to leave the gantry in place, it would park up next to the tongue. There isn't quite as much bouncing around up there as it is further back. In this case, I would use ratchet handle studs to lock all three axes in place. That might not be a bad idea to use this position as home too.

I will bolt on some aluminum sheeting to the inside of the bed rails and then cover the floor with it. I was originally going to use a shallow water trough, but don't think I'll need that now.
If I decide to leave the gantry in place, I will make an aluminum cover for the whole gantry when it's in park. That should keep blowing rain off the motors until I complete my shop addition. I have enough material for a full roof over with new trusses. The addition part was only going to be 8' x 24'. I will just increase that to 12' x 24' to allow parking of this trailer in there.
We don't have any close neighbors that would be gawking at the sparkle.
Thanks.

[smilewizard]

I am getting a better picture of how you plan to use this and it is making more sense now. I had visions of a trailer being parked at a show, or job sight and custom plasma cutting being done onsite. I think that being able to do this is intriquing.

I have set my table up with quick disconnect cables waterproof cables with the thought of adding my mill to the cnc world also. This would also make it easy to add a Portable table also.

Any info I can help with let me know as I am excited about your build and look forward to reading the progress. My table can be seen under the Thread "4 x 8 plasma table"

What is your end product going to be?

Let me know if I can help.

Andrew

[LeeWay]

Hi Andrew.
If you have a link to those connectors, that would be great.
I make blade guards for tablesaws. My router cuts out the slots and dados in the lexan, cuts the aluminum hooks and mills the aluminum receiver brackets for a Jet model that I make. I currently cut all splitters by hand on a HF bandsaw. It does a good job, but is slow. Very slow. I then clean it up on a Sharp all machine and a couple belt sanders. I use 11, 12, and 13 gauge CRS. You can click on my name above and there is a link to my page.
I think I could really reduce my lead time if I were able to cut some stock in advance. Welding the plastic takes time too, but just as much as cutting and finishing out the steel. Powder coating actually goes very fast. I can fill up my oven and do a weeks worth in less than an hour.

I certainly won't be a traveling CNC show by no means. It's just a dual purpose investment at this point. I was looking at the bottom frame on this trailer and it is quite substantial. The lumber could easily be removed, but I still think an aluminum pan that could hold an inch of water would be an efficient solution. I haven't used my torch much. Do you think the slag would burn through aluminum sheeting without any water? Doesn't really matter. Water is easy to come by.
I don't think I would be using this all that often. Maybe one day a week or two. Cut out a couple sheets worth of parts at a time.
Keep it covered up the rest of the time.
Thanks.

[Torchhead]

Design the water tray (with a good drain) to be as close under the cutting grid as possible. Then besides keeping htings from being set on fire it helps with the smoke and dust from plasma. If you decided some cold rainy day you want to cut inside you could still do that without wearing a full respirator!

I put wheels on my bigger table and the legs are adjustable pods. I can (an have ) jack the table up with a floor jack, retract the legs and set it down on it's 4 caster wheels and move it around the shop. Obviously it's not made to go off smooth surfaces. I have moved it around in the shop a couple of times in the last 5 years and the casters were nice. Still took a long time to get it all leveled up again.

The critical thing is that if the unit is going to be moved the frame will not rack, twist or bend in any way or your tracking and slides will be compromised.



TOM CAUDLE
www.CandCNC.com

[LeeWay]

Thanks, Tom.
I was thinking about the water tray.
I think I will build two trays. Most of my cuts will be done up front close to home. Two 5' square trays would be better than one large one I think. Less water. Easier to store when not needed. I think I can use a tub drain or maybe a boat plug. Drill a hole close to one side in the 2x8 so I can get at it easier.
I don't have the ability to weld aluminum, so I was considering using angle screwed and sealed with silicone. I think some thin 2" angle should fit the bill.

I lucked out yeasterday at HF.
They actually had something on sale that I needed. I got 4 very nice powder coated swivel typ jacks for $14.99 each. I sure don't know how they can sell stuff like this at that kind of price. They appear to be of decent quality.
I needed to install those before I did any other work. It has to be in the bubble first. I did manage to find some Unistrut locally yesterday as well. I played with the bearings for a design yesterday and think I have hit on an easy solution.
1/2" threaded rod turned to accept the bearings. This rod will be screwed into some inverted angle iron and that will make up the trucks for each side. I think I will use the same design on the Y of the gantry.
I have some extra linear ways I will use for the Z. Still working out how to place the struts so my racks will also be on the outside.
Not yet certain if I can get by with single side drive, but both sides will be identical, so another rack won't be too bad to install.
I should have some photo's soon.
Thanks.

[LeeWay]

I picked up a few things today. Dang HF. I had a flyer that I was looking through with 15% off. They had this portable garage thingy I had been eyeing for awhile. Regular $279. Now $169 minus 15%. Sold.
It's actually quite good for a temp cover.
This should do me until I have my addition complete. I also picked up my angle iron today. 2" by 3" stuff.
I welded my jacks on there and leveled it out. I had a little trouble until I realized the wheels were acting on the jacks. I raised them all up about another inch and everything went perfectly.
It will be slow going, but I'll peck away at it. The sooner I get this done, the more time I'll have. Kinda ironic, ain't it?

[LeeWay]

I have a little more progress to report.
I installed my 2"x3" rails using 3" stainless bolt so that adjustments both side to side and shimming up and down could be done easily. I used 5/16-18's.
I welded both Unistrut tracks on instead of trying to bolt them in place. I worked my way from one end to the other spotting every foot. Then filled in every 3" after that. It welded up very nice and straight.
My laser level tells me that the trailer is level and that the front rails are 1/4" further apart than the rear. A little tweaking will fix that right up. I am very pleased with how its progressing. It should prove to be a nice cutter.