Rebuilding Oxyfuel to Plasma

[chrugel]

Hi,
Now there will be no rebuild, I saw to many problems comming our way and when the problem with flexing in our cantilever design came up i had to go and take a look. It was terrible, no way we can speed that up wery much without serious flexing in the beam.
It looked so sturdy and strong we never really thought of that as a problem. Thank you for your help, I would probably have made a fool out of my self if this conversion had taken place .. .

I have proposed to build one from scratch instead, one with rack and pinion double drive on the gantry. With steppers!

Is there any free plans available on the net? cutting area needed is about 2 by 4 meters.

best regards
Chris

[Weldtutor]

Originally Posted by chrugel Is there any free plans available on the net? cutting area needed is about 2 by 4 meters.

For free plans, click Here. See posts #43 & 44 to download PDF plans to print.

These plasma table plans from Mike Laws can be modified to fit your size requirements & rack & pinion drive method.

[millman52]

It's been a while since I really looked one of the ESAB cantilever tables over. But from memory the "X" rails are on the tracing table & the "Y" Is hanging out on the cantilever.

What would the chances be in cannabalizing the cantilever & converting that section into a gantry over the existing tracer table?

Maybe strengthen the legs & side rails to support your load, add slats & new controls & back in business.

I'm sure it would be a pretty major re-work but at least you wouldn't be starting from scratch.

Just a thought................


It's very time consuming to build from the ground up. Even with plans there will be many hours spent studying, then gathering all the necessary parts into 1 pile. Then there is the seemingly endless hours of cutting, welding, drilling, threading, test assembly, re-assembly, setting up the software & learning curve of it. Then comes the troubleshooting, Test cuts & finally cutting something useable.

Hey! it's my very last intention to discourage you from building. Just don't begin thinking it will be a project you can accomplish in 2-3 weeks. It is very rewarding to finally see a table running & doing what you want it to do. I know I am very proud of mine. Even without it being dressed up & painted.

If you have the work for a table the few G's it takes to build/convert will not take long to recover. Mine has paid for itself in less than 5 months. + the fact it's bringing in other work for the welding & machine shop.

Neil.

[chrugel]

Originally Posted by Weldtutor For free plans, click Here. See posts #43 & 44 to download PDF plans to print. These plasma table plans from Mike Laws can be modified to fit your size requirements & rack & pinion drive method.

Than you, they have now been downloaded and are beeing studied as we speek!

regards
chris