newbie

[jc0515]

Good evening everyone!! I am starting a welding, metal fab and plasma business. I will start off with art to get my feet in, then expanding with my metal fab and welding skills to build chassis, car parts, ect. I have a few questions. I have been looking into a lot of tble and man there are some serious varieties. I am looking at a 4x8 also with a scribing tool. I dont want a cheap machine, I want a quality mahine. I was thinking 13k-20k. I have looked at wescott, arclight, kobie, and jd squared. Are there any others that you would recommend? I also have no experience with creating the files. Would you buy a kit from a company to get started? I saw one that as like 2600+ designs for like 700$.

[djreiswig]

A Bulltear table should be in that price range. They build a very durable table, and Matt is a stand up guy. No complaints from me.
If you subscribe to this site you get access to a treasure trove of beautiful art that has been contributed. As well as a bunch of helpful information. That's where I would start.

[jc0515]

Ok I’ll look into those. What design software does it use?

[djreiswig]

Not sure what they supply with the new tables. You can design in any cad program you want. Then import the file into a program called SheetCam (pretty sure they still supply that). Then export gcode and open it in CommandCNC to operate the table. It's a three step process, versus something like a PlasmaCam that is an all in one deal. It isn't a big deal to do it this way. I think it gives you more control over your table, but I'm sure others will argue the other side. Just personal preference, I guess.
Give Matt a call and he can run through the features.
https://starlabcnc.com/

[adbuch]

I would recommend taking a serious look at the Plasmacam/Samson tables. Available in 4x4, 4x8, or 5x10. These use Design Edge, which is probably one of the best software packages out there for design/cutting. I own several of the Plasmacam DHC2 4x4 tables, which are easily expanded to 4x8 (or 4x12). The Sampson is basically the same table, but enlarged to 5x10 and painted red (instead of the Plasmacam blue).

http://www.samsoncnc.com/specs.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STwvQOcV4MY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry4kohKGAfI

https://www.plasmacam.com/archive/plcam.htm