CNC plasma gantry kits now on sale!! (Build your own table save $$$)

[87k5cucv]

Figured it'd be easier on there than piece for piece...

[ROXROES]

Just squeezed the gantry kit in the back of my ZJ, shipped unscathed Matt. I think it would have to fall out of the truck and get run over by the vehicle behind it to hurt your plywood packaging!

Hopefully do some test cuts tonight!? Have to finish wiring up the plasma.

[MC]

Sounds great cant wait for your progress. Verify Z axis when you get it unpackaged and home. I didnt know you had a ZJ shoot I think I have had 6 of those! I plan on buying another this year for a another shop truck and possibly a mean build on one as well.

[87k5cucv]

Originally Posted by MC

Sounds great cant wait for your progress. Verify Z axis when you get it unpackaged and home. I didnt know you had a ZJ shoot I think I have had 6 of those! I plan on buying another this year for a another shop truck and possibly a mean build on one as well.

He ZJ has some killer bumpers on it too...

[ROXROES]

Originally Posted by MC

I didnt know you had a ZJ shoot I think I have had 6 of those! I plan on buying another this year for a another shop truck and possibly a mean build on one as well.

Yup, love my ZJ, its pretty sentimental to me due to its history. Its my mild wheeler/shop truck.

See here for my build-up thread:
Gantry Writeup

Originally Posted by 87k5cucv

He ZJ has some killer bumpers on it too...

They're not to shabby...

[472Scout]

MC,

I believe the plasmacam has a way to manually advance the torch head along the cut path by using the knob. People say that feature makes it real easy to reset after a tip up IIRC. Is there a way to do that with your unit through the software or something?

[MC]

Yes you can move the Z axis up manually using your keyboard. You can move any axis with your keyboard.

[MC]

BTW 2nd to last day of the sale!

[Caper]

Your phone says closed today? Looking to order.....pm'ed you and left phone message.

edit - quick return call, thx.

[Jeep07]

Originally Posted by 472Scout

MC,

I believe the plasmacam has a way to manually advance the torch head along the cut path by using the knob. People say that feature makes it real easy to reset after a tip up IIRC. Is there a way to do that with your unit through the software or something?

Actually I think that is a feature specific to plasma cam. It's pretty neat I must admit... I haven't figured out how to do the same thing in Mach3 yet.

[472Scout]

Originally Posted by MC

Yes you can move the Z axis up manually using your keyboard. You can move any axis with your keyboard.

Yes, but is it possible to follow (back up and foward) the cut path?

[ROXROES]

Originally Posted by 472Scout

Yes, but is it possible to follow (back up and foward) the cut path?

The mach forum would be a better place to search/ask that question. I'm going to look into it because it would be nice to have it do a quick perimeter run to make sure I'm where I want to be on the material. I've thought about affixing a cheap laser pointer to the torch so I can conserve material better and sit at my desk and see where its hitting.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php

[MC]

Yes you can move to the spot you had the crash you just have to edit the program screen with a quick delete. In Mach 3 your program is highlighted. Best part about it is that you do not need to know G code. Sheetcam (quickest) sets up all that and the interface has a small learning curve.

Last day of the sale anyone interested send a PM

[472Scout]

Originally Posted by ROXROES

The mach forum would be a better place to search/ask that question. I'm going to look into it because it would be nice to have it do a quick perimeter run to make sure I'm where I want to be on the material. I've thought about affixing a cheap laser pointer to the torch so I can conserve material better and sit at my desk and see where its hitting.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php

The laser is a good idea. Let me know what you find out about the path retrace. So far it doesn't sound possible in Mach 3.

[Torchhead]

Originally Posted by ROXROES

The mach forum would be a better place to search/ask that question. I'm going to look into it because it would be nice to have it do a quick perimeter run to make sure I'm where I want to be on the material. I've thought about affixing a cheap laser pointer to the torch so I can conserve material better and sit at my desk and see where its hitting.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php

When MACH loses the Arc (Arc OK) it stops. That is after a couple of seconds and may leave a section uncut.

Here is the procedure to scroll back and restart a lost arc cut.

1. Note the G-Code line number on the scrolling G-code window (in case you need to get back to the spot)
2. Make sure you are in STOP (and not just FEEDHOLD)
3. Use the mouse and scroll bar to scroll back up (backwards) through the code until you see an M03 line....that is the start (pierce point) of the current cut. Scroll a few more lines back to the M05...that is the end of the previous cut.
4. Highlight that line and hit the SET NEXT LINE button.
5. Manually jog the Z up (Page Up button) and TURN OFF THE THC Button in MACH.
6. Hit the RUN button and the torch should move back over to the beginning of the cut and do the pierce move and fire the torch. AS SOON as it fires click the TORCH button on the screen and turn the torch back off.
7. Watch it move over the already cut kerf line ("air cut"). When it gets about an inch from the spot you want to start cutting click the Torch button Back on.
8. When the Flame starts cutting new metal click the THC button back on in MACH.

The above procedure assumes you have not lost position and you need to resume a cut from a spot. If you have lost the cut for some other reason (some Dumass hit the wrong button ) or you walked off and came back to a mess. It's a little harder. You may have re-reference the X & Y to reestablish 0,0 and then scroll through the code watching the toolpath and find the pierce BEFORE the spot you need to start and then follow the procedure above.

Once you do it a couple of times it's pretty easy. We seldom have to do a re-cut or lose and Arc. If you watch your consumables and don't try to get the very last pierce (which wears them out faster than long cuts) or last inches they won't "snork" out and cause cut problems.

We have owned a commercial cutting business (www.FourhillsDesigns.com) for over 6 years and did (mostly) decorative cutting. We now stay 110% busy on the CNC electronics end so the cutting business has become more hobby than vocation. I have hundreds of hours on a CNC plasma table and had to teach myself a lot of tricks. I have been using MACH for 5 years (before it was MACH) and SheetCAM as long as it has been out. I worked with Art (MACH author) to put THC logic into the core of the software and talked Les at SheetCAM into putting Plasma stuff in that package.

************************************************** ******
Anybody in North Texas want to trade some CNC electronics for fixing my two Sammies? Nothing fancy I just need them running for the Ranch. Contact me at tom@CandCNC.com if you are interested.

For those of you that have the Bulltear table (or wish you did) you are welcome to join my Yahoo Groups forum to get support. It gets answered afterhours and on weekends (usually). It gives you an alternate source of support for plasma cutting. CANDCNCSUPPORT Yahoo Forums.

I plan on having a 3 day workshop on CNC (plasma & Router) in late October. It covers the HARDEST Part of CNC cutting: The Software side!
It will be announced later this month.

I'll try to drop by more often and help where I can.

TOM Caudle
aka Torchhead
aka CandCNC Support Dude

[472Scout]

Awesome Torchhead. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

[ROXROES]

Thanks for stopping by Tom! You have been a great help once again! My current transformer arrives today so hopefully have my table running tonight!

[Torchhead]

May I make a suggestion about position on the table? Laser pointers are nice but as you gain skill and trust in the technology you won't need a pointing device (unless the pretty light entertains you!).

Make sure you have Home switches on the XY (and Z for Touch-off). Your table needs to have an established 0,0 (I have an "L" bracket welded to the slats with that is my 0,0 point. Everything in CNC is measured in Absolute. What that means is from a known set of points. It's called the Datum Point and with milling it's often the edge of the workpiece and done with a lateral touch off (Work Reference).

With a larger cut surface like the plasma table it's easier to fix the known Table Reference and the Work reference to each other. That way if something happens that you could lose position (remember that the control software does not "know" where the table is at) you can reference back to table 0, 0 and you can get within a few thousands of dead on. We put a special button on the screens called REF XY. It's so you can quickly reestablish the table zero to the XY homes.

How, you ask, do you deal with cutting a job out of a piece of scrap or out of a sheet that already has prior cuts? There are two ways:

1. Put the sheet back where it was to begin with (using the table 0,0 point) and go back to your job file in SheetCAM and pull up the sheet with the prior parts on it (you DID save the JOB file in SheetCAM ). You just bring in the new "PART" you want to cut, move it around on the sheet and select that part to cut in SheetCAM and turn the other ones off before you POST (generate the G-code). If the make the lower left corner of the sheet 0,0 on the Job file AND the table you can nest things on a sheet very tightly even on sheets with prior cuts. (More about Nesting in a future rant!)

2. The other method is using a odd shaped piece of scrap. If it's got two relatively straight sides place the corner at table 0,0 and go back to SheetCAM and just put the part on a piece of material that is roughly the size of what you have.....cut as ususal.

3. You want to cut something out of an odd shaped piece just thrown on the table. Get your hand tape measure and get an "Offset" value in X and Y to what would be the closest thing to a lower left zero of the random sheet. Adjust the part in SheetCAM (just drag it) and place it in the computer where you want, re-POST.....cut as usual. If you want to do a dry run just turn off your palsma unit and the THC Button (so it won't wait for ARC OK) and let it simulate the cut. On of the nice thaings about SheetCAM is you can: Make the material any XY size you want and it shows up on the screen. You can choose to offset it in in the Material settings from X and Y so you can "visualize" where the material is on the screen (as long as it rectangular or square) You can cut multiple PARTS on any sheet.

4. Harder (but useful for small adjustments when things need to schoosh a little) is to determine how far you need to move the cut (eyeball calipers) in either X or Y and open the OFFSETS tab in MACH and in the X or Y DRO type the offset in. Neat thing about that is it still lets you use the table 0,0 but automatically shifts it so you still know where you are in relation to absolute table zero. Don't forget to reset the offsets (type in 0's in the offset DRO's). The settings are modal meaning they stick until you change them. Some day we will discuss how to do offsets in code and even setup and run multiple Z heads with different tools!.....then again, maybe NOT!

All of this precludes you have X and Y Homes! If you don't and need some cheap sources and help setting them up just holler!

Get low cost roller lever microswitches from: www.BGMicro.com

Learn to depend on the computer and your software for CNC. It's often counter-intuitive to those of us that grab a tool and start welding/hammering/grinding but be at one with the computer Grasshopper and it will seldom let you down!

TOM Caudle

[MC]

We use Tom's parts only because he has a high degree of knowledge and experience in the field. Toms company supplies what we feel are the best components for operation to service. You will not get a dead components from us everything is pretested and working before shipping. Having Tom onboard makes our CNCplasma tables possible at a great price.

Thanks for chiming in here Tom!

[472Scout]

Thanks Tom that makes sense only thing I wasn't sure on is whether these gantry kits come with the XYZ home switches?

[ROXROES]

Originally Posted by 472Scout

Thanks Tom that makes sense only thing I wasn't sure on is whether these gantry kits come with the XYZ home switches?

mine did

[MC]

We have added options to our tables like these belt reductions and a new water tray with integrated slats so you wont have any plasma dust!

[vbtj]

PM me a non-sale price since the sale will be over soon.

[bigtoy302]

Originally Posted by MC

We have added options to our tables like these belt reductions and a new water tray with integrated slats so you wont have any plasma dust!

I like that you now have a belt drive and water tray options available. Once you cut with a water table you will never want to cut without one again.

[Torchhead]

Originally Posted by MC

We have added options to our tables like these belt reductions and a new water tray with integrated slats so you wont have any plasma dust!

I LIKE it!

TOM C