CNC Plasma Table Build

That is what i am hoping for.. an I just had the thought i can possibly slide the y axis rails back a bit as well.. on the front side i can get the z axis off the table, but on tje back side i lose the travel,l. 3" for the gantry plus the rauls an carriages plus the thickness of the z axis assembly.

 

It's really something I didn't consider in the purchase of a table until having owned one and cutting a lot on it.

Even though building one makes a ton of sense from a financial standpoint, I may very well just buy an STV on my next upgrade (if I upgrade).

Back to the point, STV tables display standard cut envelopes IE 4' x 4', 5' x 5', 4' x 8' and 5' x 10' but actually incorporate an extra inch or two per side to allow for edge start on thick steel.

 

My design goal was a 50"x50" cutting area.

Base table is 60"x60", .an I am pretty sure i can get to the goal. By getting it all adjusted right

 

Looks like I was able to gain a bit of room and hit the 50x50 cutting area goal.

I may not be able to use the floating head mount I 3d printed last year, but I added THC and touch sensor so That is probably not needed anymore.

I gain a bit of room by pushing the Y axis rails back a bit..



An it makes a great spot to mount the E-stop buttons. keeps them out of the way yet still easy to hit the big red button.

 

Spent a good part of the afternoon, actually fixing the crashed gantry. While I had everything apart I also added in the front plates.



Since I ended up with a different color screw on this order, I decided to put them on the left side, as a visual reminder of the home position, or least I can say that if asked why the screws don't match...

I also Counterbored the mounting plates for the gantry.



New mounting brackets where made from 1/8" steel and bent on the brake, I picked up the Swag offroad 20" finger brake kit a few years back, and while I do not use it a lot, it is been very nice to have.




Did Some preliminary motor tuning and got the travel distance reasonably close after a few tries, I will reverify with longer travel distances once I get the the home and limit switches, and Estop buttons wired in.

I may wire up the plasma cutter Just so I can watch the computer fire the torch..

 

Prophetic words above...

What's next week Powerball numbers?

 

The Plasma cutter is Officially under the control of Mach4, the Torch trigger gave me some hassle, I ended up sticking a relay board in between the controller and the Plasma cutter. Found a 4 channel 5v relay board in my parts box of Misc stuff for projects that I never got a Roundtuit for.

Crude test, just threw the torch over the gantry an spaced it close enough to be able to fire the arc. after a couple tests of seeing the pilot arc trigger on demand. stuck some old 16g sheet metal under the tip and Manual fired the torch with Mach4.

https://youtube.com/shorts/sdv8ZGBgSFw?si=Wlj98Of6whaUksGF



Now to get the Torch mounted, and wire up the Z Axis

 

Small step, but forward progress.

The Y axis is now able to home itself an square the gantry.

My plan is my the end of the weekend is to have the X axis home an all the limit switches working..

Found a source where I can have a custom water pan made. Bit spendy... there is also a local shop that makes plasma tables, maybe they can make a water table cheaper

 

Ran out of wire and the roll in T-nuts. So Not able to get the limit switches installed

But I did get the bracket an mounting location figured out for the X Axis.







I am also going to relocate the Y axis switches, the original location has proven to have a very difficult and fussy way of adjusting, the new idea will also become a built in spacer to keep the machine off the wall or future equipment, and t may help mounting the drag chain for Y axis as well



The New Design...






Putting the Proximity switch so it picks up the front / Rear face of the Gantry uprights, will make it a lot easier to adjust the desired stop position than the original idea of picking up the inside of the upright.

I am using the forward most gantry position to set the initial location, while leaving a good amount of room to adjust the sensor position

 

Homes switch brackets are in place for the Y Axis





I still need to adjust the proximity switches, and wire up the rest of them as well, Been feeling a bit under the weather so I have not spent a lot of time in the shop.

I did order some stuff to get the drag chains mocked up, I started with the X axis since it was the simplest.



I used some 1x3 Aluminum channel as the support track for the drag chain, Yea bit overkill but it looks good, an it fits the rest of the machine well.



I am thinking of adding some bright white LED strip lights to the underside of the channel, any thoughts?




I will need to remake the connector bar that connects the Z axis assembly to the gantry, it needs to be extended so the moving end of the chain can attach at that location, the fixed end will get mounted to the 1x3 channel.



I will also trim up the spacer plate so it will match the Z axis plate thickness.

 

I am intrigued about the lights.

Led lights are so cheap these days, you might as well do it!

 

Well, Finally did it. first "part" cut on the homemade CNC plasma table.

I tried a test square from fireshare and ended up with a very unexpected result



it should have looked like this..



I figured it was a mistake on my part when generating the g code in sheetcam. So I decided to write some manual code to cut a 2"x2" square right inside mach4.



ok, the machine can cut a square, even though this was a bit rough, I played around some more trying to get a better result. with out much luck.

I then broke down and installed Fusion 360, I am not a fan of Fusion and much prefer Inventor, But Fusion has the CAM side I needed. I wanted to try something other Sheetcam an see if perhaps that was causing issues.

I drew up a simple 3"x3" square with a small circle and a rectangle on it. run the simulation and it appears to be working. I even ran a couple dry tests on the machine an again it all seems to be fine.

Run the actual part, and again not what I expected, this time the inner portions did not cut, for some reasons the torch did not fire, even though it traced the path for both of the inner portions. It did however cut a pretty clean square.





Considering I am still getting the motors tune, it came out nearly spot on dimension. So maybe Kerf width is the issue here.

 

Where have I been this whole thread? Subbed!

 

Thanks for the tip in the right direction. I figured the tool library kerf setting was something that I needed to figure out the right value for.

I think the whole workflow was off when I generated the tool paths. I created a different file and did each profile separate, and this time I made sure to click on the setup before running the post processor. This time when viewing the G-code I see two comments for different profiles.

Before you was asking why the 3d-printed torch mounts... well... I caught the torch on a cut out and this happen



I need to do a closer inspection to make sure the torch head or body is not damaged, hopefully it survived with no hidden damage. but the it broke the carbon fiber nylon mounts before I could hit the stop button. if they had been metal I would have broken the torch with out a doubt.

This does reinforce the idea of making a magnetic breakaway mount. Which My thoughts right now are to use the threaded holes I am currently using for locating pins, attaching a strip of sheet metal to back of the new mounts and counterboring a hole for some small round neodymium magnets

But for now, I am waiting on parts for the plasma cutter. Somehow I managed to break the regulator and there is a ton of air escaping through the front vents. So I got to test out that Primeweld customer service today. and it lives up to what every says about it.

 

So I deleted my post as I read it again earlier today; had posted it in haste without realizing you did simulate your cut paths and did create your code.

But fortunately you found some helpful info in it; what the tool library does not take into consideration even if you save it are pierce delays. Only kerf width and cut speeds carry over without having to manually input it each time for each new item you create.

The only thing I can think of is maybe just making sure you have the latest post processor for creating said g code as maybe torch on/off and height sensing commands were ignored? Can you post that part of your G code in here? This way we can see what was actually sent to your software and see if it was a break in code, post process, or if it's plasma cutter related.

You can open G code in a notepad and copy paste the text here.

 

It is short, so This is the whole thing

N10 G90
N15 G70
(2D Profile5)
N20 G0 X0.1027 Y0.1939
M62P5 (+++ P=Output5, Turn Torch ON +++)
N25 G4 P0.5
N30 G1 Z0. F50.
N35 G1 X0.0042 Y0.3644
N40 G3 X-0.0066 Y0.3707 I-0.0108 J-0.0063
N45 G3 Y-0.3243 I0. J-0.3475 F110.
N50 G3 Y0.3707 I0. J0.3475
N55 G3 X-0.0174 Y0.3644 I0. J-0.0125
N60 G1 X-0.1158 Y0.1939
M63P5 (--- P=Output5, Turn Torch OFF ---)
N65 G0 Z0.2161
N70 G0 Y0.928
N75 G0 Z0.0161
M62P5 (+++ P=Output5, Turn Torch ON +++)
N80 G4 P0.5
N85 G1 Z0. F50.
N90 G1 Y0.9575
N95 G1 X-0.0174 Y0.787
N100 G3 X-0.0066 Y0.7808 I0.0108 J0.0062
N105 G1 X0.8869 F110.
N110 G1 Y0.983
N115 G1 X-0.9581
N120 G1 Y0.7808
N125 G1 X-0.0066
N130 G3 X0.0042 Y0.787 I0. J0.0125
N135 G1 X0.1027 Y0.9575
M63P5 (--- P=Output5, Turn Torch OFF ---)
N140 G0 Z0.2161
N145 G0 X-0.1158 Y1.7042
N150 G0 Z0.0161
M62P3 (+++ P=Output5, Turn Torch ON +++)
N155 G4 P0.5
N160 G1 Z0. F50.
N165 G1 X-0.0174 Y1.5337
N170 G3 X-0.0066 Y1.5275 I0.0108 J0.0063
N175 G1 X1.5 F110.
N180 G2 X1.5275 Y1.5 I0. J-0.0275
N185 G1 Y-1.5
N190 G2 X1.5 Y-1.5275 I-0.0275 J0.
N195 G1 X-1.5
N200 G2 X-1.5275 Y-1.5 I0. J0.0275
N205 G1 Y1.5
N210 G2 X-1.5 Y1.5275 I0.0275 J0.
N215 G1 X-0.0066
N220 G3 X0.0042 Y1.5337 I0. J0.0125
N225 G1 X0.1027 Y1.7042
M63P5 (--- P=Output5, Turn Torch OFF ---)
N230 G0 Z0.6161
N235 M30

 

Also, what plasma cutter are you running?

50 amps and 110ipm on 16 gauge is either, too hot at that slow of a speed or too slow for that hot of a setting.

Varying machines are around the 28-35 amp rating at 100-120ipm, if going higher like 45-50 amp rating they're normally running over 200ipm.

 

Mach 3?

Looks good so far, but you said the torch didn't even fire...hmmm

 

$699 Primeweld cut60 60Amp Non-Touch Pilot Arc PT60 Torch Plasma Cutter 110V/220V Dual Voltage 3 Year Warranty

Primeweld cut60

Running Mach4, the post processor is one from warp9 for there ESS board, there may be a better post out there for fusion. I know the code is different from the sheetcam post that makes use of my THC and touch sensor

 

Ahh ok, never ran Mach 4 and interesting that one post process supports your THC and the other doesn't with different CAM software.

I don't run a PTM-60 (although I used to) but I believe I was about 100-110ipm and some 28 or 29 amps with my

$699 CUT60 60Amp Non-Touch Pilot Arc PT60 Torch Plasma Cutter 110V/220V Dual Voltage 3 Year Warranty

CUT60.

My current UPM-105 runs 100ipm and 30 amps for 16 gauge.

Hope these numbers get you closer to where you need to be.