best place to get plasma table components


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    Default best place to get plasma table components

    I need a CNC plasma table at work; I guess a 5x10. I can't get a $20k+ purchase requisition approved right now. The best way to make it happen with minimum amount of red tape is to buy the components a little at a time and fabricate/assemble it myself. I haven't done much research although I have found some Chinese kits for sale on eBay. I am about to start researching but I would appreciate it if you guys could point in the direction of a place where I can purchase basically a kit of all the moving parts, but in small chunks.

    Thanks

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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Sounds like you need to speak to Tom from CandCNC. I'm sure he'll be along shortly. One of his kits should be perfect.

    Rod Webster
    www.vmn.com.au


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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Quote Originally Posted by rodw View Post
    Sounds like you need to speak to Tom from CandCNC. I'm sure he'll be along shortly. One of his kits should be perfect.
    I never get between a "stick" builder and his project! Building with parts and pieces or kits off Ebay, is a great learning experience. Hope he is going to get paid for all of the hours learning to be designer, technician, .programmer, machinist, researcher and fabricator.

    TOMcaudle
    www,CandCNC.com



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Sorry it took me so long to reply; I wasn't aware anyone had responded.

    Quote Originally Posted by Torchhead View Post
    I never get between a "stick" builder and his project!
    Not sure what you mean by that.

    I'm looking around for a low cost THC and I find your LCTHC documented on the internet as what appears to be a standalone "Low Cost" option. I do no however see it for sale on your website. All I find there are kits which exceed my single-purchase cost requirements.

    Do you still sell the LCTHC? If so, how much is it?

    Quote Originally Posted by Torchhead View Post
    Hope he is going to get paid for all of the hours learning to be designer, technician, .programmer, machinist, researcher and fabricator.
    My title here is "Controls Engineer." I was hired to design PLC control systems for subsea tools but that only accounts for 10% of the work I do here. It's a small company and everyone here wears multiple hats. I'm the only one here who knows how to run the lathe (for prototyping, not production - we outsource that). Earlier this year I bought an old CNC mill on my own dime and to retrofitted it to LinuxCNC - now I get free tooling and "work from home" days so I can do more prototyping work at home. I had to teach myself how to use Autodesk Inventor - now I do more Mechanical Engineering than software. I'm also one of two people here who can weld worth a damn, so I do a lot of that too. I also sweep the shop sometimes.

    This is 75% within my wheelhouse and I'm not afraid to learn the other 25% along the way.



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    1. "Stick Building" = building something out of pieces, one piece at at time. What I meant was we don't sell parts and pieces. You either have to ignore customers that are doing their own designs and demanding support on how to hook it to other parts from other vendors or raise the price a lot to pay for the support. There is a fallacy that all this stuff just hooks together and you load some software and start cutting.

    2. Several years ago we sold off the LCTHC design when we decided to get out of the add-on THC market. The company that was selling the LCTHC (and another THC) was not successful; partially because there are at least 4 and maybe more add-on Low cost THC designs that need MACH3 (obsolete) running on older Windows Get on Ebay and you will see several. We no longer sell any Windows based solution. All our products are designed to work with LINUXCNC and our CommandCNC interface. The lowest level of controls (MP3600) we sell include the Multi-port Breakout board, the Ethernet pulse, isolated I/O , the DTHC with the pickup modules, computer. LINUX and CommandCNC. This is what we call the "Front end" of the controls is designed to be used with an external motor power supply, motor drivers and AC controls.

    3. All of your skill sets are admirable. It's not a function of fear or a question of your ability, its about time and patience. If it's the challenge and learning experience you want and the lowest possible parts cost then you go the "stick building" route. You gather up a bunch of parts, figure out how to interface all of them, then teach yourself how to use both the hardware and whatever software you select.. Hundreds have done it.

    The good news (for you) is if you design and build a table and make it work, you will buy yourself job security because if you decided to leave or get hit by a NOKO rocket they have a 1200 lb turd they have to try and use. . We get calls all of the time that start out: "We had a guy that worked here build a table and we need help getting it to run......"

    TOMcaudle
    www.candCNC.com



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    For the part by part building route:

    CNCRoom, The Room for CNC'ers, from Mini to Big machine, from Hobbyists to Gurus - ????????????????? ???????????????????????????????
    This company have recently made a dedicated isolated breakout board for the UC300-ETH from Cncdrive.
    You’ll also see on this main page, they have other items for building the table.

    Main page for their variety of boards:
    smoothstepper

    and breakout board only:
    UB1 [UB1] - $180.00 : CNCRoom, The Room for CNC'ers, from Mini to Big machine, from Hobbyists to Gurus - ????????????????? ???????????????????????????????

    or breakout board + UC300-ETH package:
    UC300ETH-UB1 [UC300ETH-UB1] - $320.00 : CNCRoom, The Room for CNC'ers, from Mini to Big machine, from Hobbyists to Gurus - ????????????????? ???????????????????????????????

    The UC300-ETH is made by a company called CncDrive, based in Hungary. They have an active user forum and their software is being actively developed. It runs with most versions of Windows.
    forum.cncdrive.com ? Index page
    http://www.cnczone.com/forums/uccnc-control-software/ (not as active since the CncDrive forum started up).
    When you install the software it installs a standard and a plasma profile screenset. Screen icons are made during the install for standard and plasma setups. You can download the installer and run it in demo mode.

    The plasma setup can be used with a basic external THC which sends THC UP / THC DOWN signals to UCCNC (the name of the software).
    Do a Google search for these types of THCs, and you should get a variety of results.

    If you want a more complete and capable THC you can buy the Neuron Simplicity or Lite. The Lite THC is the more featured one and the designer Andrew has written a dedicated screenset for UCCNC. You can download the manuals for both THCs and see which one you prefer:
    http://neuroncnc.com/

    Stepper Drives – Gecko make quite good quality drives. I initially had a Leadshine drive on my cheap crappy Chinese stepper motors, and they stalled so easily. Changed to Gecko G203V drives and they drive my crappy motors great, right up to speed with no lost steps.
    The Gecko website also has some good technical info about steppers and drives, and even about making a power supply for them:
    http://www.geckodrive.com/

    Gantry kits – I think Precision Plasma do a gantry kit:
    http://precisionplasmallc.com/
    and they even have a PDF on building a table for $6K+
    http://www.chacich.com/MAGNUM%20II/D...IT%20GUIDE.pdf

    Get on forums like Plasmaspider to gain knowledge from other builders / cutters:
    https://www.plasmaspider.com/
    and cnczone:
    http://www.cnczone.com/forums/genera...ting-machines/
    http://www.cnczone.com/forums/plasma...e-project-log/

    Hope the above helps.

    Keith.



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Quote Originally Posted by Torchhead View Post
    What I meant was we don't sell parts and pieces. You either have to ignore customers that are doing their own designs and demanding support on how to hook it to other parts from other vendors or raise the price a lot to pay for the support.
    Ok, I respect that. I didn't when I read it the first time, but after a bit of thought I see your side. Thank you for explaining.



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    @Beefy,
    Whoa, that's a lot of info. Will take me a while to chase all that down and digest it. Thank you very much!



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Quote Originally Posted by Beefy View Post

    The plasma setup can be used with a basic external THC which sends THC UP / THC DOWN signals to UCCNC (the name of the software).
    Do a Google search for these types of THCs, and you should get a variety of results.
    I think I know the answer to this question, but are these little ebay special "up/down" relay output jobs capable of anything close to this?




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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Quote Originally Posted by Torchhead View Post
    All our products are designed to work with LINUXCNC and our CommandCNC interface. The lowest level of controls (MP3600) we sell include the Multi-port Breakout board, the Ethernet pulse, isolated I/O , the DTHC with the pickup modules, computer. LINUX and CommandCNC. This is what we call the "Front end" of the controls is designed to be used with an external motor power supply, motor drivers and AC controls
    So the video I linked to in post #9 IS your DTHC IV, which is part of the MP3600 package, so I should therefore be able to do the same thing if I bought it? or is the barebones MP3600 package missing something I need for that? (apart from motors/drive - I know)



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    The Neuron I mentioned should be able to do it. It uses a PID algorithm to control the Z (torch) height, and the basic THC up/down type external THCs are generally slower than the PID types.

    I'd recommend reading the Neuron Lite manual to see its other features too. Andrew has put a lot of features into that THC that make it more that just a THC. It's more like a package that goes together with UCCNC to make it an overall more high end plasma system.

    Here's a link to a thread that gets a little heated arguing about THCs and has some Neuron users:
    http://www.cnczone.com/forums/plasma...-plasma-2.html

    And I've attached some screenshots from my Demo install.

    Keith

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_13_02-png   best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_12_37-png   best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_17_34-jpg   best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_13_16-png  

    best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_13_43-png   best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_14_20-png   best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_15_07-png   best place to get plasma table components-screenshot-13_10_2017-5_17_07-jpg  

    Last edited by Beefy; 10-12-2017 at 02:24 PM.


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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    I will devote more time to studying the Neuron but I was initially turned off by it because I prefer to use LinuxCNC, not Mach, and it appeared to be geared to Mach.
    Upon second skim of their page, I see some mention of LinuxCNC so I will dig deeper.



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Quote Originally Posted by strantor View Post
    I will devote more time to studying the Neuron but I was initially turned off by it because I prefer to use LinuxCNC, not Mach, and it appeared to be geared to Mach.
    Upon second skim of their page, I see some mention of LinuxCNC so I will dig deeper.
    Throw in the mix that the MP3600-DTHCIV is a complete solution. It includes the DTHCIV and all of its modules and a single cable interface to the Hyperthem or the choice of a Universal Connection Kit for other plasmas with no internal CNC connections, a 5 axis step & dir double buffered interface with screw terminals or a G540 header. The price includes the PC . Linux OS, LINUXCNC and CommandCNC. PC comes with CAD, Drawing and normal utilities like a Browser (Firefox), PDF reader File manager and Text editor. All you need to add is the RS485 4 port hub and which connection Kit you need for your plasma. You then use whatever motors/drivers and power supply you want.

    For options you can get the Ohmic sensor (FT-01) and that gives you a dual touch off set-up when pared with the normal mechanic floating torch holder.

    So the DTHCIV is integrated into the Ethernet Bbreakout (BoB) and uses Real TIme LINUX kernel for low latency I/O to be able to do things like VAD (velocity Anti Dive) . VAD is based in the real time velocity of the cut and turns the DTHC on/off in less than1msec. It stops corner diving and end of cut dive.
    CommadnCNC is written to specifically support the Ethernet BoB and the DTHCIV. You get specific POSTS for SheetCAM (available as an option installed on the LINUX PC) that give you advanced automation for having all of the DTHC cut settings embedded in the G-Code and auto-load when the G-Code loads. If you tend towards the ultimate control you can go with a Hypertherm 45XP thru 125 with the optional RS485 serial port to give you dynamic control of cut current and air pressure. Add the HyT-Connect Sim kit and it makes that control available in the software.

    You can do Plate Marking , Oxy-Fuel and Rotary Pipe cutting without a lot of added expense. CommandCNC and Sheet Cam are ready for those options

    Do some due diligence on the LINUXCNC options. We have a GUI CONFIGURATOR for CommandCNC. No rooting around in the INI files or the HAL definitions. The PC is preloaded and comes with default CONFIGS for plasma, Oxy-fuel and router. If on-the-other-hand you LIKE rooting around in LINUXCNC and making your build more challenging and more molecular, then its time for RodW to jump in and extol the excitement of a true DIY plasma CNC system he built over a year long project.

    You might be ahead to take advice about systems from a person or persons that actually have the system they are touting up and running and cutting, and have been using it for real production cutting.

    You are welcome to join our Support Forum. Its open to non-customers.

    TOMcaudle
    www.candcnc.com
    12 years of Engineering Excellence for CNC



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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Quote Originally Posted by Torchhead View Post
    If on-the-other-hand you LIKE rooting around in LINUXCNC and making your build more challenging and more molecular, then its time for RodW to jump in and extol the excitement of a true DIY plasma CNC system he built over a year long project.
    Nah Tom, If you go back through this thread you'll find I already suggested the OP grab your system. I thought that made sense for a work related project because he wouldn't want to root around with a boss breathing down his throat and he gets LinuxCNC to boot.

    No need to get personal though. Yes I've taken a year but most of that was designing and building a table as every component was scratch built. Plus every now and again life gets in the road and I have no time to play for a couple of months at a time (like now). No kits of anything here!

    Quote Originally Posted by strantor View Post
    I will devote more time to studying the Neuron but I was initially turned off by it because I prefer to use LinuxCNC, not Mach, and it appeared to be geared to Mach.
    Upon second skim of their page, I see some mention of LinuxCNC so I will dig deeper.
    I can't see that you would not be able to use Neuron with LinuxCNC. But a cheaper option might be to use a Mesa card and their $69 THCAD board to measure torch voltage. The beauty of LinuxCNC is that everything is possible....
    Ask your LinuxCNC plasma questions here
    https://forum.linuxcnc.org/plasma-laser

    Rod Webster
    www.vmn.com.au


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    Default Re: best place to get plasma table components

    Rod: My intent was not to denigrate you or your work. I was only repeating what you have continuously posted and to support the concept that a builder can buy in at all levels trading time for money. I am glad you have done pioneering work on Plasma for LINUXCNC. As evidenced by your own posts it was not a load and go project. As a builder/buyer you have to decide if its the journey or the destination.that is most important.

    There are dreamers and doers and you posses both qualities. When someone is trying to make a decision it needs to be based on facts. By facts I mean actual cutting that supports the intended goals of the original posts.

    As Thomas Edison said: " Thunder is loud, thunder is impressive but its lightening that does all the work"



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