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

Let me know how it works for you! I got a miraco pro and played with it for a day but returned it. It could not scan things unless they were the perfect color and it seemed more made for car sized objects.

 

It.is.fucking.hot.

Only 8am and it's already 78 degrees out so I'm not going to be cutting today or tomorrow

 

Yeeeah I lied again; I forget how significantly cooler it is inside my garage

Knocked out a good number of test cuts the good ol' fashioned way

 

And with a "good enough" chart established, I thought I'd run what I sort of call the "benchy" version of CNC plasma - a dino cut.

To start, I opened up the Pterodactyl file I've shared here before. In opening it on Fusion, I measured out my manually nested layout which turned out to be just over 680sq inches.



I mention this as I'm now working to implement Optimum as much as possible and get familiar with it on the CAM side.

Bringing that same DXF over, and utilizing a very conservative rotation of 45 degrees, and 0.125" of spacing, we end up with a nested area of just under 620sq inches. You can see there are still a lot of voids and that's due to the limited angle of rotation I implemented. I guarantee we can bring this down and still achieve great quality due to my gear reduction.

A learning experience surely, but it's ok because we're still on the same steel plate I'm doing test cuts out of.



So, how'd it cut? You guys can be the judge.

I put every piece out on the table, with the underside up so you can see all the dross right off the table.











And the top side.











And the reason why I called this test run "benchy" is because in all my experience, getting square cut slots is probably the hardest thing to do.



I won't say that there isn't any beveling, but it is really minimal with many edges being perfectly square. Expected due to the many X-Y transitions and the fact that the speed is the same all throughout the entire design.

I have to say, I'm super stoked with how today turned out and I really wish I had a video to upload. Unfortunately I'm poor so I use my phone for all my Youtube videos and pictures; I had a recording for this cutout going on until I received a call or messages at the 9:41 mark, just 1-2 minutes shy of completion. Really wanted to include the park at the end of the cut where it utilizes its "park" feature as shown in the above picture automatically.

Also, revisiting my results in my binder I found that cut outs 8, 11, and 15 yielded the best results which will make me go back and dissect those settings further and perform more test cuts tomorrow.

It's time for some mixed drinks and chilling in the AC the rest of the day.

 

you should send all those parts to me and I'll put them together!

 

Not production ready!

 

Beta tester !

 

Ok real talk!

I normally sell them for $120 shipped. Being that I planned to weld this up and keep as a "comparative" piece, I'd be ok with letting it go but I'd have to ask for something for it.

If anyone wants it, I'll ship it out for $60 as is to the lower 48 with you getting first right of refusal.

 

HAHA dude I'm just yanking your chain! I think you should keep it as the comparative piece as you mentioned and then sell the crap out of them!

 

Yeah I'll clean up the dross, then if anyone wants it I'd be willing to sell it.

But the real ones get sold for $120! Not as popular as the raptors though, those things sell really well.

 

have you posted photos of them before?

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3d-metal-dinosaurs-3-to-choose-from.820365/

They sell semi-locally too.

 

Dude that's freaking awesome! I like the Pterodactyl!

 

I didn't realize how big it is once assembled.

 

PM incoming instead of the shit talk.

 

the scanner showed up sometime in the last few days, been working 16 hour days on storm restoration, they moved us from nights to days with about 14 hours notice, so my sleep is all kinds of jacked up. but we are down from 60,000 plus customers out to around 1600. I am exhausted, but it is also nice being home in my own bed on storm. tomorrow will be the 4th day of storm work, but I will be passing along what I learn from the scanner

 

I'd say you can post a "W" in the roster column.

 

So I tried sketching in some piercings into a sketch today using the “function” in Fusion 360. It was not successful. I could not get them into a cut profile. I extruded the main sketch then placed points and set depth and parameters but could not get a 2D profile to build and get the desired piercings for easier drilling. Hell, I would even be happy with just an etch. Has anyone had any success with small piercing holes, roughly .125 or less in diameter? Not looking for a complete circle.

 

Some people cut 0.125" holes in CNC plasma, others don't. This will of course be dependent on the consumable set you're running on your torch.

Another option is making a small circle that's just a hair larger than your kerf, set it to no leads, center for sideways compensation? Just my theory of course, and you'd want it all in its own profile.

Personally I would just skip using CNC plasma for doing such holes as the heat from plasma hardens the metal, and will kill drill bits easily when trying to drill out your pierces.

The best solution would be to run an Easyscriber with g code for only marking all your holes, then returning to work zero. Swap in your consumables, fire up the plasma cutter, then run the second g code for cutting your large part out.

Now you've got your CNC part cut out with all your holes perfectly scribed for drilling.

 

I do have a scribe. Interesting points on the hardening piece as well. The holes today were intended for nails so no tapping or drilling. I just figured it would be easier to use the designed function in the program instead of drawing circles and creating a separate profile.