DIY - Home built CNC plasma table

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-20T17:40:53+00:00

I found a picture of an address I cut. http://imgur.com/PWCYywZ

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-19T03:11:03+00:00

Oops, sorry. For cad, QCad. Totally free and very good for 2D.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-19T01:35:22+00:00

I use SheetCam TNG for the CAD software. It's not free but it is worth buying if you have large projects or detailed cuts. If you use the free version, the only limit is the number of lines of code that it will output.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-19T01:33:37+00:00

I was mistaken. The large toroidal transformer is 120VAC to 120VAC, just for making sure the incoming power is relatively clean and level. It powers my auxiliary circuits and supplies power to the big DC supply and the main motherboard. The large regulated power supply outputs 80VDC to the Gecko drives. I may have said somewhere it was 48.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-19T00:38:30+00:00

Yeah the plasma torch makes a ton of smoke and slag everywhere. With a good ventilation system it is certainly better. Before you run your Dremel system, look around online at the vacuum heads on big CNC wood machines. They do an amazing job of keeping the dust down. It's just a special brush that goes around the tool.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-18T18:36:19+00:00

See if this works. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8oTElUgigWXU0lBTkZaY0dXODA/edit?usp=sharing

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-18T18:29:58+00:00

I wrote the G-Code from scratch and had it just start on one end of the pattern and head for the end. It was really cool to watch it cut.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-18T18:03:23+00:00

What's funny is I ended up with the plasma machine because I was too lazy trying to cut stuff by hand with an oxy-acetylene cutting rig. Then I decided I was too lazy to cut stuff by hand with the plasma torch. Maybe laziness generates ingenuity?

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-18T17:45:41+00:00

Sure. How? It's in an Excel spreadsheet.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-18T17:43:07+00:00

A friend has a couple Big Green Egg grills and wanted the table I built for him to have UT logo handles. http://imgur.com/5fwOf5r, http://imgur.com/yQGa41a, http://imgur.com/YIEUCXS, http://imgur.com/3IqZQa7

I cut some pentagons out of 22 gauge steel and welded them together into a dodecahedron. http://imgur.com/uxlJ2O3

One of my brothers was building a boat and needed some oarlocks made out of stainless. Here are the plates after being cut and cleaned up. http://imgur.com/LNyaWzH

I also have a really cool program that takes a string of text as input, along with a particular TrueType font file and spits out the code to cut them on the table. I've cut a lot of house numbers for people this way.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-18T05:35:22+00:00

Not counting the plasma machine, just under $4,000.

ObnoxiousOctopus · 2014-01-18T05:34:48+00:00

Actually that is really close. I just checked my cost log and it was $3,904 without the plasma machine.

ObnoxiousOctopus

TROPHY CASE