Anything Manufacturing - Small to Medium Scale Metal Work (CAD/CAM included!)

@Pyrotech forgot to update you but my plan to run an easy drain/fill system was put to a stop.

I don't have enough room underneath to incorporate a tank decent enough to use.



I even asked a local Langmuir user if she wanted my tank, she's welcome to it for free but no go. The tank is too long to fit anywhere.

I should reiterate; the tank is too long to allow me to situate anything underneath that'll keep things in an easy-to-reach manner.



As for the printouts, the two I originally intended to use are also a no go. Not knowing how the water pan sat on the frame didn't allow me to account for the sides being blocked off underneath.



On the plus side, I was able to incorporate the other style nozzle once I scored and broke off the tabs sticking out.



Looks cheesy, but it'll aid in filling with either water or fluid whenever needed.

 

No not edibles..

BBQ dry rub... i have my orginal rib rub in 3 heat levels. A bbeef rub, a ghost chili blend. An one that at the time had the 3 hottest peppers in the world. And recently been working on a chicken rub.

Also been making a spicy beer mustard, creamy jalpeno green sauce, and a fire roasted red sauce that may or may not become new products

It used to be on the market direct to consumer with aome wholeaale sales to about 5 retail stores across the country.

It has been used to win at least one that I know of , KCBS cook off the team reached out because they never took better than 3rd with ribs. They tried my rub an won 1st in ribs an took gramd champion an $50k in prize money. Along with a few wins in smaller cook offs

 

So, I got the Post Processor file!

Interestingly enough the post process prompt is a tad different than Langmuir's.

Here's Langmuir, where the end user must set their programmed cut height along with the proper pierce delay for one's material -



Then there's Optimum, which basically has nothing except a tool change -



Now, Ivan himself handles tech support so he isn't involved with any part of the actual software development. He knows Optimum very well but not Fusion 360 at all so he couldn't really tell me much about the post processor for it.

With that said, now that I've got it and looking at it, I assume the "head switches" is an option for their CNC router tables in case the end user wants to replace a bit for whatever they're cutting out of wood. This is the only thing that makes sense really, and the lack of pierce delay and other such options is strictly due to those functions being handled in the Optimum controller itself.

As I demonstrated in the CAM process of Optimum, all you're really doing is creating your cut paths, setting your kerf, creating different speeds for different geometries (layers) and that's it. Arc voltage, cut height, and pierce delay are all done on the controller screen.

I just post processed a file and ran a simulation on the table and it ran as expected with one weird action - when I run the program, the table does a quick "home" job before it proceeds to simulate cutting. I think this is cool as fuck but I was already getting the hang of homing the table each time I fire it up.

 

Just say you're famous

 

Only dave can be famous

 

That's awesome!

 

well, I broke down and bought myself a 3D scanner.

https://www.revopoint3d.com/pages/3d-laser-scanner-metrox

Since we rained out last night I spent the time printing some markers, why spend the the extra $200 for the advance kit from Revopoint when I can print them and get more options than what they offer.

 

Water pan so big you have to sit there and wait while you fill it with a garden hose



Didn't mean to go this high but that's fine, we'll let evaporation bring it down a tad

 

Test cuts tomorrow

 

Also, and this of course is just my own personal opinion, but often you'll get someone asking about "other table brands" in the FB group.

Most that comment just stick with Langmuir, but every now and then someone has a Spark Robotic or an STV table. The only other company I see mentioned quite a bit though is Premier Plasma and I always wonder "why"?

To start, if went to look at "comparable" tables both in terms of price range and cut envelope, they're not much less than the competition.

Let's say you want their 4' x 8', they have a "regular" table as well as a "flat top" table. The modular setup is pretty similar to most other companies, I mean there's only so many ways to skin a cat. But once you add things like THC (a must have for anyone) along with a water table, you're at $6k for the regular and $6.6k for the flat top respectively.

If you compare it to the popular Langmuir Crossfire XR, you're right between the regular and flat top, but get what I would consider a better table. The Langmuir is reinforced quite a bit more all the way around so I expect it to be much more rigid than the Premier Plasma, and is packaged pretty much as a "complete" system with the touchscreen, mini PC, and all.

Premier Plasma does include a desktop PC (looks like a refurb Dell Optiplex), but runs on Mach 3. Then there's the whole "after thought" of a Proma THC controller as it's not even built-in seamlessly within their setup since THC is an option even on a $6k+ table.

But if there's one thing that bugs me more than anything, I'd say it's their torch mount.



(This user had to slot their torch holder, the drilled and tapped holes we're done too wide. That and he had to cut down the hardware since it would hit the rear linear guide)





Over the years, the setup has not changed one bit. I guess it works for them? I just can't imagine that being good for the torch head/body not to mention ensuring that you have a perfectly trammed setup.

The whole thing rolls on ball bearings as well, just like the XR, so that's a wash for both of them really. But after reading so many comments, seeing posts in different threads and groups, and watching videos, the whole thing seems like a kit cobbled up together selling for as much as a well-thought out system from the other guys. The real take-away from this though are the many complaints about the lack of fitment across many different parts, customer support that taking +2 weeks to send you replacement parts (the user in one of the videos above never got his replacement part), and overall bad customer service. And once you're up and running, owners themselves complaining about inconsistent cut quality when it comes to dimensions on many of their parts (oblong circles are common) however I would chalk this up to assembly maybe.

And if for some reason you fancied yourself an STV table, you're only $200 away from the Premier Plasma flat top but gain more like significantly more robust components that are machined in the US, a setup that's much easier to square up (you have to manually adjust all the bearing blocks on the Premier Plasma), as well as a magnetic break-away!

Anyway I digress. I'm a bit more picky about where my money goes since it doesn't grow on trees for me, but if anyone's got a Premier Plasma table, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

 

I gots no dog in that hunt. I threw a dart and landed on a Gecko 540 controller with Mach 3 software.

My home made unit is holding up fine, but I have no intention of going into production, so I can't tell you how long it's gonna last.I did poney up for quality 3:1 reductions and linear rail bearings that were greasable.

I never did hook up my THC. I really only do 1 off designs, so I'm not missing it.

I have so many other hobbies, I just cant deep dive into only one.

I do appreciate your detailed posts. I always take away something that I can file away for future reference. Don't change a thing.

 

Gear reduction seems to be a big must for anything running on a rack and pinion setup - the ballscrew design has easier X-Y transitions which lead to the whole "MOAR ACCURATE" statement.

You did good going with your whole setup from the sound of it. But you also went DIY so naturally there will be areas you prioritized on, and others where you may have saved a few bucks. You'll never hear me knocking on someone's DIY setup cause like you said, no dog in that fight, so I wouldn't know of all the trouble it'd take to properly wire up the motion controller board with a fail-safe and all.

But when it comes to tables manufactured for production? It's easy to see why a Langmuir Crossfire costs what it does, and why Arclight Dynamics and other companies carry a premium. But Premier Plasma is definitely an odd duck especially for what it demands - I'd love to see a GoFab table as well as I've only ever seen their ads come up, but nothing more than that not even on other forums like Plasmaspyder.

 

Oh man, today was not the most productive day cutting.

Did some test cuts but I kept getting beveling. Going to see if there's a step I need to take in setting things up as I keep getting possibly an incorrect cut height and/or arc voltage during cutting.

Also the holes aren't great.

 

" no likes! "

 

well, it looks like there will be a lot of overtime in my near future...

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/aus...firms-long-track-microburst-hit-austin-metro/

was notified that we are now one storm restoration 14 hour days.. I normally work nights, but they have reassign my crew to days starting tomorrow. they gave us paid rest time for today so we can get some sleep and readjust sleep patterns. last I look there is still almost 17,000 with out power, and one area of town had 140 poles down even with the additional 200 crew from outside the system the restoration will go on for several days

 

Again, " no likes"! Be careful out there. Lots of peeps running gennies feeding their houses via the dryer outlet.

I know you all trained to assume all lines are " hot", but it doesn't hurt to let others know this could be an issue.

 

Normally I'm pretty thorough when I post, and I couldn't leave my earlier post hanging like it did.

So I ran multiple test cuts, a few being the same run just to 'test and confirm' and the result really was inconsistent beveling. I ran both the file I post processed in Fusion, as well as the file I post processed with Optimum itself.

Rules were slightly different in terms of lead ins and outs, but I ran the same speed and tested both with arc voltage, as well as automatic height control.

Well, I fucked up the first 3 cuts as I didn't realize I had left my cut chart loaded on a different tool in Optimum - let me explain.

Optimum has a tool chart as I mentioned earlier, with your settings being cut height, pierce height, pierce delay, but even arc voltage. When you load an NC or TAP file that includes F code (speed), Optimum will prioritize the g-code's speed over the built-in chart. I knew this, so naturally I ignored what was loaded however I failed to realize the chart was loaded for 3/16" so while the cut, pierce, and delay were pretty much the same, the arc voltage was a good +100v for cut height.

It wasn't until I had the torch rising while it was cutting the outside that I realized it did so in order to achieve my arc voltage setting. I think this is where I partially ruined my nozzle.

Well, after I switched to 10 gauge (Hypertherm only has 10 gauge or 12 gauge, no 11 gauge for the material I was cutting), I made sure it was also set to Finecut and Quality which puts me at the correct arc voltage of 78v. Huge difference from the other setting at over 100v.

Unfortunately, the circular cutouts didn't fall out right away so it's fair to say I'll have to dial in my speed all over again. I had 110ipm set on my Crossfire Pro, but 90ipm seemed to cut better on my STV.

Anyway, going on to the next few cuts I had weird beveling that wasn't consistent at all so I called it a day.

Here are the last two parts I churned out, at 100ipm using Optimum and auto torch height -











And the same but at 78v using arc voltage settings -











I'm taking tomorrow off to enjoy the new artificial grass we got put in earlier, and will come back to this Saturday. I will say during everything, I was largely suspicious that my cut height was a lot lower than it was supposed to be.

The beveling isn't all that terrible really, but it could be fixed and again I think it's due to bad cut height.

Couldn't well enough leave things alone so I got to digging into seeing if there's something I need to "fix" or "adjust". Well, that's when I dug around and thought I'd do my own calibration of the Switch Correction which basically means the adjustment needed for when the floating head touches off the material and regains control.

The default value is set to .05" for Switch Correction, and the cut chart has an Ignition Height of .06" as shown here -



Rather than type what I did, here's a short video -

https://youtu.be/Nw9gPH43Qsg

So I wonder if now with the correct Switch Correction if I'll see any difference in my test cuts. Worst case I start messing with different arc voltage settings.

 

We will see this Saturday!

I did make a call to STV after my test cuts, asking if there was something I was overlooking to which I got the Hypertherm speech I got months back when I had that issue with a new torch. "This isn't waterjet or lasercut so you'll always have blah blah blah" so I sort of tuned it out and got to digging on my own.

Don't get me wrong, absolutely everyone has been awesome at STV but the one specific guy I was talking to may get enough of us "experienced users" as he said it himself, every time he gets to talking to one he has to advise them to throw all their settings they've got out the window and start new. The biggest emphasis placed on how THC works and everything on their setup.

I agree with him to an extent, but CNC plasma is still just CNC plasma, and my plasma cutter is still putting out 50:1 voltage and it's all connected to the same dedicated outlet I've had for +3 years now.

So anyway, taking tomorrow off from cutting will be my mental "reset" to start fresh again on Saturday.

Sorry if I bore you guys with all the details! Just like to share everything I learn as it could help someone in the future (or if you just like learning about new shit in general).

 

i'm just along for the ride!