Anything welding

works pretty good!

took longer to put together than to square-up 12 cuts

 

I've got an Evo cold cut. I love getting nice, smooth 45 and 90 degree cuts.

I ended up taking of the shield that was supposed to corral the debris as it went out the back. It was basically just reflecting it back towards me. Now at least it shoots out the garage door out onto the driveway.

 

Buddy dropped off a project for me to weld up. A little intimidated but hopefully I can get it done.

 

Back to this project that I started a few weeks ago..The Rear Shock Tower/2nd. Spare Tire Carrier.


Tied in both Left and Right side brackets with 1" square


Didn't take pictures of the Eye Hooks. I drilled straight through for the threaded part of the Eye Hook, fastened and torqued the nuts on the bottom. And welded the Eye Hook at the top.


Something that I didn't take into consideration was the thickness of the Tire Strap Hook, I needed to take some material off for clearance.



A couple of hours of watching YouTube im now a welder and fabricator lmao...The finished project!!

 

Made two key racks for Toyota fan bois this weekend. Keeping one of them.

 

New torch arrived today!



The UPM-105 next to the Duramax; I have to say though, for a torch that's half the cost of the Hypertherm, the PrimeWeld really feels like a solid deal.

I've put it through it's paces for a year (since it came out) and it delivered exceptional cuts each and every single time.



Was too hot in the garage today so I'll wire up and set up the Hypertherm tomorrow or the day after.



On an unrelated note, I had someone from the FB group ask me about the fixture table.

So, I did a hasty flatness check after I did a quick job of "leveling" it.







The largest shim that would fit in the worst area (direct center) was a .015" shim



Yet the immediate area around that spot wouldn't even get a shim as small as .008". I'm sure I could've used something thinner and it wouldn't fit underneath.

Off camera, I couldn't even get a .006" shim underneath if the straight edge was run from top to bottom anywhere through the table; in many areas even a .002" wouldn't fit.

Here's an unlisted video I uploaded. First clip is with a 50" long straight edge that has a flatness guarantee of .003 over the entire length, and the second clip using a 24" long straight edge with a flatness guarantee of .001 over the entire length.

https://youtu.be/V2Sh8exbrBk?si=e6aihF8UIxFdcfnh

Siegmund has tables costing much more that guarantee flatness of at least .020" so I'd say, this is more than good enough for me.

 

Wiring ran, torch squared, and the Hypertherm is now on the table

 

Why did you make the switch?

 

One word

Quality.

 

Any chance of knocking out another one? Shoot me a price, thanks.

 

Just backed a Kickstarter for the new DP 200 from YesWelder.
We'll see if it lives up to the hype. I've only ever used crappy cheap combo mig welders and I've never owned a TIG capable welder before, so going to need some tips from the TIG welding SMEs.

 

I must say, what a difference going from the CUT60 with UPM-105 torch to the 45XP with Duramax torch.

I used to cut 3/16" at 60ipm, 0.9 pierce delay, 70psi, and about 40 amps on the CUT60.

I can now run as fast as 85ipm, with as little as 0.5 pierce delay (technically 0 by Fusion's standards), and 45 amps on the 45XP.

Shorter pierce delay, faster cut speed, and practically no dross running at book settings.

The other difference here is, rather than using "smart voltage" (used to detect voltage based on initial cut, and maintaining it throughout the cut) the Hypertherm suggests that the end user to manually input cut voltage as that value equates to your torch's cut height.

Seeing the results below it seems I'll have to dial it in a bit and fix the slight cant in the torch holder.





Still though, the edges are ridiculously clean for the speeds they're being cut at which means production will be much faster than I'm used to.

Wish the weather was much nicer as I'm happy to get it dialed in so I'll have to wait until the weekend to start working on it in the morning.

I'll have to dial in the kerf width for sure - the book setting of .059" is too big as my outside cuts were over .02" too small and inside cuts were about .04" too small in relation to the CAD.

 

Three small test cuts, all I really have time for.

One I excluded as it was a means of figuring out my actual kerf width.

The second is the one shown here, running smart voltage. All around two edges have the tiniest bit of bevel (hard to see), one side is perfectly square, and the opposing side has a tad more bevel than the other two.

The "average" difference from the physical piece and my CAD is .00275 of an inch and this was using a kerf width of .04".





As for my inside cut, the difference is only .002 of an inch.



Here was my reference, a 2" x 2" square with a .625" hole in the center.



As for the third cut out, it was done using nominal voltage for 129v.

This one provided interesting results, such as the physical piece being quite a bit smaller. Book value kerf is .059 and I should follow that since the part came out to 1.9750".

I receive nearly square edges on 3 sides with 1 side being quite beveled compared to the test piece above.

So nominal voltage, 3 sides are great and 1 is pretty noticeable.

Or smart, 2 sides have the tiniest bit of bevel, 1 side perfectly flat, and the opposing side a tiny bit beveled.

From here I'm sure I just need to adjust speed a bit but I'm wondering if I should stick with nominal or smart.

 

I am anxious to get some test cuts going as well. I am going to start just using the book values. New motion control board comes in tomorrow so I should be up and running in the next 48. I am using a PM65 and probably went too wide on kerf width as well to start.

 

Ah, so you had a bad part?

I wasn't being facetious about calling me or shooting me a text. I help a ton of people in the group over on FB.

Pretty easy to figure out what an issue is with these tables after enough fiddling around with them.

 

With that said, I've got my own dilemma to figure out for Saturday.

I have a second fixture table arriving either tomorrow or Friday, so I'll be busy rearranging the garage for that.

But Saturday test cuts, I am almost positive I will be ignoring nominal voltage and going against the grain by choosing smart voltage.

Smart voltage gave me more consistent results as far as squareness goes, and I figured out a kerf width within .002" on my first try.

I should be able to switch my kerf width to .042 and that should give me my perfect cut.

And from there, maybe playing with cut height a tiny bit in the event that I am not perfectly at .06" (which I did use feeler gauges for).

 

I sincerely appreciate it. I was just so furious that I had to step away. There has only been three cuts on the machine, but whatever. All this info is really helping me wrap my head around everything.

 

It's crazy simple really

I made this video for the most novice person with no experience in CAD or CAM so I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm explaining it to a 10 year old but that was the goal, to make it easy to understand

https://youtu.be/igmgPaBNlyE?si=4SkpPxtdrdPyXWZi

Have received a lot of PM's for either thanking me for it or having asked for such a video when they first get into CNC

 

Second fixture arrived!



Ignore the mix of casters and feet.

First things first, I need to head out and buy some WD40 since I ran out to give the table top a real deep cleaning. It's got a lot of surface rust from the flaking that sat on it with oil.

After which I'll need to buy some hardware for bolting the tables together followed by removing two of the center legs (toward the air dryer).

The other two legs on the opposing end of the air dryer will both have casters.

Then I'll have to level everything, clamp it all together, then bolt it up to maintain a flat even surface.

 

@zippsub9

Speaking of Langmuir, apparently I just made Group Expert

Then again I do enjoy helping people out (with actual knowledge and experience)!