New 5 x 10 plasma build

[WSS]

I know many people use 1/8 2" for slats on plasma but I think the larger machines that run oxy and plasma go with 4-6" slats with 1/8 and/or 3/16. I think the depth on the oxy/plasma tables is for the oxy torches but I'm not 100% sure.

I run 4" X 3/16" slats with no support (84" long) on our plaz/oxy table. You are right in saying it is for the oxy, My HT1650 plasma can production cut 1/2" like butter with little damage to the slats, but the oxy set-up can cut up to 10", maybe more. That said, I thumb and eyballed the build to support a 4" plate placed anywhere on the table. When cutting with oxy at slow speeds, it tends to bite deep into the slats. when cutting 1" plate, the flame can nip about an inch deep, with 2.5" it will get at least half way down the slat. Water changes everything. It will slow the oxy/exothermic reaction some I would suppose, I have not had a chance to finish our watertable.

plain ol bills's water table is the coolest (his table is tooo, but that watertable, wow)

WSS

[jjellingson]

Bill from your motor tuning skills, even though you have bigger motors how are you going about setting your acceleration and velocity. I have been messing around with mine and not really sure what I am doing. Mine seems to be good with 300/30 to 500/30 I know I need to study mach3 more on this but I thought I would fire off a question to you on the matter. Its amazing how many little quirks pop up when one thinks he may be getting a handle on it. I got a lesson in DTHC, very embarrassed to be trying to trouble shoot the problem with Tom, then it dawned on me I was missing one serial cable. I have to give him credit with putting up with bone heads. Another question, when you power your solenoids for your plate marker, where are you getting your power from? I know your system is larger but just curious. I suppose I could get off my butt and read up on it, some times that's problems in its own.
Thanks in advance for any insights you may pass along. Again, thanks for all of the encouragement during the build.
John

[plain ol Bill]

John it has been long enough I have forgotten what the hell I did for accel. and velocity. At my age if you don't think of something every little bit it seems to fly off into the wild blue and you have to start all over. I do know it is in Mach but where eludes me.
The power source for my solenoids comes from the relays on my table I/O card. I'm sure you have the same card but I think it might be in the gray box on your system. I have both solenoids hooked to one of the relays that are controlled thru Sheetcam post's that put the Gcode to control them into the program. I put the scribed parts or areas on a seperate layer and use the scriber post for that layer. You can drag and drop the layers in Sheetcam to control whether you scribe before of after the plasma (I scribe before cutting). TIP: John when you start looking for solenoids get three way high pressure ones that will handle full air line pressure.
I saw on Toms forum where you got help - he is awesome isn't he. Sometimes after talking to him I have to wonder "what did he just tell me???" since he knows it so well he can talk to you like you are an electrical engineer also.
You are at the point now John where you can start to have fun with it!

[Torchhead]

John: every table tunes differently (the reason it's call "tuning" (:-)). the general rule of thumb: Get as high an acceleration number as you can without faulting the drives with the velocity set to about 1/2 of max. Then start raising velocity. You may need to lower acceleration some as you go since they play against each other. Your settings you have now if you don't get faults is good. You have nice acceleration and plenty of velocity. Getting the last little bit of acceleration and or velocity out will not improve your cuts above a certain point. As long as you can get 20 IPS/s acceleration and speeds faster than your fastest required feedrate for thin material anything over that is just "feel Good". Some argue that fast rapids are needed for production cutting but only if you are cutting the same shapes in big sheets hour after hour and every second counts for productivity. Most cutting takes more time to setup, load the material and do cleanup than you can possibly save by halving the time between cuts.

TOM caudle
www.CandCNC.com

[plain ol Bill]

Yeah John - what he said!

[plain ol Bill]

Well after four years I had started to notice a little rust on parts and around the slats on my table. Time to change out the water I figure. So I dumped the water, put in 370 gallons (or there abouts) of well water, added new sodium nitirte, a squirt of green coloring and some physan. The green coloring I added was Esco food coloring (kinda an emerald green) - not really the green I was looking for. Anyone know where to get the lime almost emergency green coloring?

[Voodoo Vintage]

Bill,

I believe what you're looking for is florescent green "tracing dye"?? That's what I use.

You can find it all over Ebay and it only takes about three table spoons for an entire 4x8 table 4" deep!

[plain ol Bill]

That is exactly what I was looking for. I just could not remember the name of it to save my life.

[cemrich]

now who's software and control will you use?

[plain ol Bill]

All my electronics came from CandCNC - I use CorelDraw X4 for my primary graphics program, Shetcam for CAM, and Mach 3 for table controlling. Just bought the new omnic sensor from CandCNC and will get around to getting it installed if the weather ever gets above freezing here. Old bones don't like this cold.

[plain ol Bill]

For anyone that might be wondering I did get the Feather Touch omnic sensor from CandCNC installed and LOVE it. One of the best upgrades I have done to date. I will be upgrading my machine torch from the Hypertherm 80M to the new Duramax machine torch shortly. Will update the thread when I do.

[plain ol Bill]

Time to update my machine I think. Making and running this machine has been a large learning experience for me. Looking back to when I started this build I did not really have a good idea about designing my X and Z axis's. So I am going to redesign and build a new X axis that will be much lighter weight and lower to the table.
I have had two different Z,s on my machine. Broke one of them, and the second one works OK but is huge. Niether of them were intended for plasma use really and were purchased off Ebay because I just thought they would work and were not expensive. This time I am going to do it right and purchased the Z axis from Velox/K2 using a double thread lead screw. Most Z's use 10 revolutions to move 1" - this one will move 1" with just 5 revolutions. Should make for a really quick Z axis to work with the THC. Received the new Velox/K2 Z axis the other day and it features some really beautiful workmanship. Thinking of a Z axis folks - just buy one of theirs - you won't be sorry. CandCNC has come out with a new THC that does away with using parallel ports, is super quick reacting and lets you use any computer instead of ones with a parallel port. A new THC is going to happen after I get the new x and z working.Ok will quit boring you - keep an eye on the thread for pics and updates.

[plain ol Bill]

Took a couple of pics of partially completed new gantry. Will have to tear my old one apart to use portions of it to finish the new one. They will be quite different in size and weight.

[Black Forest]

OK, It has been a month. Where's the update? We want pictures!

[plain ol Bill]

Folks things have really slowed down on the rebuild. My time lately has been directed at my wife, best friend and partner for going on 51 years who has been struck with that awful disease cancer. She is by far my priority. I have spent an hour or two in the shop here and there but it seems my concentration is so far off that most of the things I do are done wrong. Sometimes you are just better off not even attempting projects if you mind is elsewhere.

[Frank W]

My wife finished with Chemo two years ago after a double mastectomy. I'll be hoping for the best for you and your wife!

[Kardal]

Just read the whole thread, I've seen a lot of things that i was wondering about. Very informative
I hope everything works out for the best for you and your wife. I hope she get well soon.

Kurt

[plain ol Bill]

I have managed to eke out a few hours here and there to try and get the new gantry up and going. My wife is going through chemo but has recovered enough from the surgery she had I found a little time to go to the shop. All functions seem to be working smoothly now and if I had not had an air compressor problem I would have made some test cuts with it today. I am pleased with it, and the 80/20 extruded aluminum is easy to work with and plenty rigid. I saved my old rack gear by cutting it off the old gantry using a length of piano wire w/ a couple of wooden handles to saw through the 3M VHB tape. I used the same tape to secure the rack gear to the new gantry and highly recommend this product to others.

[plain ol Bill]

I am really impressed with this new gantry versus my old one. I cut out some fairly complex salmon today and these were the nicest cuts I have ever made. The old gantry was built without ever seeing any other machines except some pictures of a PlasmaCam unit. I was happy with the old one but this one puts it in the shade. Everything is smoother without all the mass and the height my first gantry had. Stop and think - you are cutting at 150 inches a minute and you instantly change directions - just the momentum and the inertia of that with a gantry that had to have weighed likely 130-150 pounds. I did not weigh this one but I estimate the weight at 50 pounds - big difference. There is still some cleaning up of misc. wiring putting it into a loom or just tidying things up some. Currently the "Y" axis home switches are too high and can be bumped or damaged when putting new material on the table if you are not careful. Will have to change those but other than that I am really happy with the gantry.

[countryguy]

Awesome stuff here po-Bill! thanks for posting the pics. I've had more fun w/ the Plasma setup than most anything else in the shop. Love that thing.