Got my CandCNC monday... right on time per their 3 week lead tme...

[SomeWhatLost]

and I also got laid off monday...
the timing can't possibly be a coincidence...
pretty sure CandCNC are part of a vast conspiracy that reaches to the highest level of government...
or not, I guess it could all just be a coincidence... seems unlikely though....

anyway, my gantry & table aren't ready yet, so I just played with the motors a bit... everything seems to work just fine right out of the box... I like how all the cables are color coded... not strictly necessary per se, but a nice touch...
very nice kit...

just curious, but has anyone transitioned quickly and without any forethought or planning, from hobbyist to using the table to make money? is there any money to even be made with a plasma table? and if so, how much?
I am kind of wondering if it is worth blowing through my paltry severance on a hypertherm and trying to make money off the table (vs original plan of just doing the hobby thing...) of course, it has only been a couple days... still in a sort of shock or something... haven't even come up with a product to make or anything...

[slight rant], some big wig VP sales dweeb dude is there <6 months... gets canned... he gets a $1.4M severance as they angrily show him the door... I am there 17 years.... my whole dept was eliminated (ie they want to go cloud only... no need for hardware anymore...) but left on otherwise good terms... I get a severance less than 0.9% of that... how is that fair? now sure he was a fancy pants VP an all, and I was just a peon/minion... but still, I would like $1.4M...bet I could use it more than that VP dude...

oh well, at least I have a cool toy to play with and work on...

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[SomeWhatLost]

oh, and is there any way to make the velocity/feed rate sliders bigger and move them away from the estop button? using the touch screen that I originally planned on using on my tormach, when I poke at the slideers, I keep hitting the estop... if I was running a real program, that would be bad I think...

[Jim Dawson]

Sorry to hear you got laid off, but it may be a blessing if you're enterprising. Nothing like a little motivation to get things started. I always looked at a layoff as a new opportunity.

The first thing is to find a product to build. There isn't much money in being a job shop with a small machine. Custom truck bumpers comes to mind because I just finished one this afternoon. And all during the construction I was wishing I had my CNC plasma setup. Took me half a day to cut out the parts by hand, it would have been about 10 minutes on the plasma table, I already had the dxfs. BTW, I don't do steel fab for a living, I was just doing a favor for a neighbor.

There are all kinds of things the off-road guys want, so that might be a starting point. Just cutting out parts for someone else is probably not enough to put food on the table. You will need to be able to fab up completed assemblies. This of course requires the equipment to do so and if you don't already have it, then that could be a problem. Maybe starting out with a lower end torch would be the way to go, rather than going top-of-the-line. My Chinese Lotos torch works fine up to 3/8 inch steel. Not something I would have bought, it was given to me. But I am surprised at how well it actually works, and I have used it for CNC cutting.

Another idea might be yard art or other artistic stuff, people pay crazy money for stuff I wouldn't buy.

I have tried using a touch screen on machine tools, they tend to suck at best. I have found that a mouse & keyboard are the better input devices. For the shop, I buy only the finest keyboards and mice that $5 will buy and keep several on the shelf. I can normally find them at Big Lots, or other overstock outlets. I prefer the optical mice they seem to hold up well, I don't know if you can even find a roller mouse anymore.

Best of luck to you.

[SomeWhatLost]

you make it sound so easy
need to come up with idea

1. execute on idea
2. the market said idea
3. and profit$$$

all of that may have been slightly easier if I had the chance to do a bit of pre-planning....
oh well... I will think of something...

[Torchhead]

Best advise I can give you is NEVER start a business without at least 6 months to a year of living expenses in the bank,. especially if you do not yet have a working table have not gone past the learning curve on both the artwork side and the cutting and finishing. There will be other tools and machines you may need. You will have to DEVELOP a market and that can be a painful path. A lot of independent plasma business owners are on PlasmaSpider and you might get some ideas on things that can sell. Its hard to compete with Generic do-dads that can be made in Mexico by hand or in China.. The money is in custom work (personalization) and you can never second guess the public. You can find artwork YOU love and think will sell and then be amazed when your customer turns their nose up.

See about getting another job to at least cover the living expenses and build your plasma business up evenings and weekends. If you have no other income you are one bad deal away form bankruptcy.
We have sold controls to thousands of users. We have years of stories. We lived the experience back in 2001 when my dot-com high level tech job vaporized. I had a running table I had built and some ideas and a years living expenses and I used up every penny and then some. I had to learn a lot of lessons but I made it turn the corner and at least let me make my mortgage payments and eat beans. Lots of others have discovered ways to make a CNC plasma table pay, but as discussed, usually it was a tool in the shop to help you make a product. There is money in decorative cutting but you have to be good (and fast) at the artwork side and it's a really seasonal business. You will starve in the summer and pass out from lack of sleep the last three months of the year!.

Sorry about the layoff but often when one door closes another opens.

Join our Support Forum and DON'T PANIC.

TOMcaudle
www.CandCNC.com