Digital workshop in Paris - Swifty 600 questions

[MakoInParis]

Hello,

I run a small shop in Paris, France. We are a team of three. We service the parisien design, art and event markets for unique to limited series productions. We are equipped With an 80W co2 laser, welding station, 25 3D printers and a newly acquired A small 2ft x 2ft « «swifty 600 » cnc plasma with a hypertherm 45xp, and a non-submersible water table.

I am quite familiar with cnc millers, laser, waterjet and 3D printers. I have never used a plasma cutter, but I am certain it is the best choice to manufacture small metal parts for my shop.

I am looking for some information and pointers to reduce fumes, noise pollution, and techniques/precautions for cutting steel, aluminum, copper and brass with my machine.

I am located in a 1100sqft workshop without chimney. We are in down town Paris. Currently we are planning to build an enclosure around the machine with fronts acrylic doors. We will pipe the top of the box to our internal BOFA Oracle air filters that our laser runs on. Finally, we will rig leds and a web cam on the inside aswell as 10mm thick rubber tiles on the outside walls (besides the door) to reduce noise

Given my circumstances, can anyone indicate to me if this sounds like a reasonable solution, too much or not enough? Does anyone have any experience with the « swifty 600 », how was the machine?

I have also read about using nitrogen/argon gas for stainless and brass cutting to reduce toxic fumes. I have also read that aluminum creats hydrogen gas with water tables. Is it reasonable to cut these materials in down town Paris? Can a reliable system be installed? Any pointers?

Thanks you all in advance and I look forward to talking with you all


-MAKO
Www.mako.paris

[weldguy]

Welcome to the site, I have no experience with the equipment your using but with your background you should do just fine. Personally I can't see this going over well in downtown Paris without a robust air cleaner, these things get huffin some serious smoke!

[MakoInParis]

Thanks for the input. We built a 1m/cube enclosure for the table. We are running a medium (380m^3/hour) air pump/filter with a K&N type cansiter filter as a pre-filter. I think we will be upgrading to a 1200m^3/hour dust and fume extractor in the near future.

The noise will also be an issue from what I understand so we will be glueing 1inch thick rubber slabs to the outside of the box.

3D rendering of setup (used to optimisé floor space)

[WyoGreen]

From my experience with a water table, you won't get too much smoke from it. Your welding station probably puts out more smoke than the plasma table will.

The loudest part of the set up will be the air compressor. I have a 60 gallon compressor, and when it's running you can hardly hear it outside the shop. With the traffic noise in a big city, I doubt anyone outside of your building will even hear it.

You might do a search on here for Jim Colt's posts. He works for Hypertherm, and takes a plasma table to conventions and such. It is all self contained and has it's own air filtration system built in. A few years back he had some pictures of it on here.

Steve

[MakoInParis]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

We had our first cutting session today. The cnc plasma torch is amazing and our enclosure needs some tuning but it worked very well. We had 85dB peak in our small shop. Equally, it contained all splatter and most of the dust(still waiting for the plexiglass doors). We’re using a big K&N truck filter as a préfilter to our BOFA air treatment system.

The casing is a 1m^3 steel cage with 8mm thick mdf panels around it. We printed the support brackets & filter adapters.

We need to increase the size of our compressor as we have a 2hp 170l/min at 7bar but the motor doesn’t keep up with the machine so we can only cut with 3-4min intervals. We will be replacing the compressor soon. We have opted to use low decibel compressors, ours is 65dB when pumping.

I have included some photos of our first cuts on 1.2mm cold rolled steel. After poking around this site my evaluation is that I need to reduce the amount of water in my table. It appears that the dross is cooling rapidly and clinging to edge. I have to clean it with a file or grinder as it is fairly sturdy. Can anyone let me know if that seems correct?

[MakoInParis]

For anyone interested;

We were able to cut 1mm brass and multiple 3mm steel parts without any airflow problems by dialing down the pressure on our 2hp compressor to 5.9bar. We were running it too high at 7bar.

The brass cut great with aluminum settings by dialing back the speed 40%.

No dust or smoke issues. The dust-hood-enclosure does it’s job and our K&N filter is already changing color. We will have to clean it weekly until I can get a 1000m^3/h dust pump.

Our next step is to write a post process for mach4 to write my gcode using Fusion 360. Are there any gcode geeks on this forum?

[ben de lappe]

Bienvenu!

Very interesting read and great first cuts. Considering your cnc experience plasma will be simple to master. Cold rolled cuts great and will leave minimal dross when cut with proper settings. So easy to remove some people drop the piece onto the concrete floor from waist height knocking the dross off upon impact. Some people soak in an acid bath, some purchase 'timesaver' machines that process the parts however I prefer an angle grinder with knotted wire wheel cup brush as it sends tiny metal wires and bits of dross at incredible velocity across the shop embedding into unwary co-workers. The method used depends upon part requirements and personal preference. Stainless steel is an entirely different animal.

I have no knowledge of your equipment or software however you may post your Mach questions to the g-code geeks in the proper forum here- viewforum.php?f=55 Your Fusion 360 questions here- viewforum.php?f=51

I look forward to your posts,