CNC Plasma

[lostcause]

To the aggressive DIYers / light commercial crowd out there:

Any of you have any experience with small CNC plasma systems? dabbled with it, or even researched it a little? I'm a hobby level / build stuff to support family & friends for personal use, and occasionally fix or build something for a commercial outfit type of person. for probably more than 20 years I've had plans (bot on paper and constantly changing in my head) to build a CNC plasma burning table. Over the years I've bought a good amount of raw materials to support this effort - linear bearings, belt and pulley setups, micro switches, and more. Whenever I found surplus items that would support my future build at pennies on the dollar, I would pick them up. At this point in my life it still seems like more of a folly than an actual plan because I can barely come up with the down time from work to do essential repairs, let alone build a complex tool from scratch.

I have a couple projects I want to build over the winter, and both need parts with more precision than I want to do by hand. It would take me a lot of time to grind and/or machine tough-up some of the more precise parts I need. I put out some feelers to local-ish people posting CNC cutting on Marketplace, and I've got nothing back. I guess the people out there are doing well enough selling decorative fire rings and sports logos that they don't want to (or know how to) do custom cutting from files?

So, long story getting longer, I'm contemplating on purchasing a small system to cut my own parts. I own a (15+ year old?) Hypertherm 45 hand-held plasma, and have enough computer parts and CAD knowledge to set up that side of it, and since the mid-90's I've known how to create 2D CNC CAD files that support large CNC burning machines. What I need is the table setup. Langmuir seems to be the least expensive I see currently - $1500 to get started with a 2x2 table. Anyone have any experience or research on this or any other company out there making a similar product?

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I’ve been looking at the XTool plasma and laser welder

 

[grsthegreat]

Hmm, i purchased my table years age from Dynatorch. Id have no idea how to make my own. I have a Hypertherm plasma machine with the machine torch head. The heads are different for a table than from a portable machine.

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[etpm]

If you're gonna do any type of production plasma cutting you need to have a water bath beneath the cutting platform to capture the dust. I bought a plasma cutter with the intention of using it for CNC cutting but after using the thing I realized the dust it created was too much of a health hazard. To me and all the machines in my machine shop. A neighbor bought a CNC table for their plasma cutter and couldn't get the plasma cutter to interface with the control. They asked me for help and I got it working. Now they use it a lot for all sorts of things for their earth moving machines. But they hate the dust. I went over to their shop a while back and there is metal dust everywhere. Other than the fine and dangerous to breathe dust a CNC plasma cutter can be a great tool. I only use mine outside and always wear breathing protection. There are, or were at least, many companies offering CNC plasma cutter tables. Lotsa Chinese ones. The quality seemed to be similar no matter where the tables originated from last time I looked. A friend bought a PlasmaCam system. Expensive and not worth the money.
Eric

 

[lostcause]

I’ve been looking at the XTool plasma and laser welder

I'd never heard of Xtool before so i took a look. looks pretty neat as far as capability. the 800w one says 8mm(5/16") capacity on steel. 1200w up to 12mm, which is a little below 1/2", but pretty nice. ideally i'm looking to be in the 1/4"-3/8" for 90% or more of the stuff i do, but 1/2" would be good to have on occasion. the site states "starting at $5600, so i assume that's the 800w. Wonder how much the 1200w is? Regrettably, I'm not willing to go to that price range yet. If I pull the trigger, I'm looking to get out of the gate at under $2k, and ideally as much less as I can. We use oxy-fuel, plasma, water and laser where I work, so I've seen the capabilities on all, and I don't envision me needing the fine cut capabilities of anything more precise than plasma.

The heads are different for a table than from a portable machine.

Ideally, if this all happens, I'll eventually end up getting a machine torch to go on my hypertherm. I really haven't looked into this in the past 10 years, but people have been using the hand held torches on small tables - last I knew was that I think you needed the machine torch to have the software automatically start the pierce option, but I know i saw setups where people had zip-tied the triggers, and I've seen the companies posting pictures of tables with handheld torches on them. I'll be asking questions on stuff like that before I take the plunge.