School me on magnetic drills

[LD1]

Earlier someone had a good point: Strap that thing down! or clap it. But I would still take a mag over hand drilling any day .

Typically I would agree. On thin stuff, you can get creative with clamps.

But when trying to drill a thinner (and possibly rusted) 3/4 ton truck frame, trying to hold the drill in position, get lined up with where you want the holes, and then fumble with clamps and straps and hope the thing dont slide or move, is far more of a workout than just using a good hand drill.

 

[grsthegreat]

i used to use magnetic drills on the older style street signal lighting systems i helped install years ago...back before aluminum poles took over. They were awesome..till the generator shuts off. happened quite a few times. what a mess then, especially the times the drill was being held upside down 30+ feet in the air. started to use strap restraints to prevent this from happening....helped a bit. wrecked many drills over the years.

 

[Shield Arc]

Sheild, is that CNC table in your toy list for the powermax?

Yes it is. Or you can use an oxygen & acetylene torch too. But I've never done that.

 

[crazyal]

I rarely used them but did see a lot of them in use with bridge building crews. Looks like a nice tool to add to the home inventory but I ended up with a large floor drill press. I like having the table with the T slots too much.

 

[grsthegreat]

hay, back in the good old days i had a Milwaukee vacuum base core drill setup when i was doing alot of underground parking garage electrical work. Had those diamond tipped 2" drill bits, the whole shebang. dont miss that drill at all. what a back breaker

 

[Industrial Toys]

I have an 800 with the upgraded torch. Could I automate that? What is involved? Expensive? Do you need to run standard CAD CAM software like solid works? Any brand so I can look at a website?

Thanks

 

[grsthegreat]

i had to buy the table and get a license to run the Dynatorch software for my table. Most of the plasma tables like to run with machine (straight) heads but can be made to work with hand torch heads. My table uses cad software to make the cut files, but have to use the table manufacturers software to operate the servo motors that operate the machine.

 

[Shield Arc]

I have an 800 with the upgraded torch. Could I automate that? What is involved? Expensive? Do you need to run standard CAD CAM software like solid works? Any brand so I can look at a website?

Thanks

My CNC table has it's own operating software. I can use Corel Draw, or Auto-Cad. With Auto-Cad drawings I have to import them into Corel Draw.
Here is what the screen looks like for Command 'n Cut.

CNC Plasma Cutting Systems - ProTable & Nitro Table | Tracker CNC

 

[varmint]

Just a quick observation- I have seen mag drills being used, and they had an eyebolt for safety- if the power were to fail, they were tied off to something so they might drop a little, but not enough to harm anything. No fancy securing. And annular cutters, by cutting with a small surface area, are way more efficient that a big drill bit.

 

[muddstopper]

I bought a 3/4 chuck for my drill press so i could use the angular cutter instead of regular drill bits. Wish I had a mag drill, its hard to set big pieces of metal on the drill press and hold in place for drilling. I keep looking for a good used mag drill, but have seen very few come up for sale.