DIY Plasma Table-likely in over my head

[OldFatMan]

Retired in Colorado with more time than money. Welder/boilermaker, a little blacksmithing and machining experience. I’m converting my plasma table duplicator (has x,y axis connected to a stylus to follow patterns) hopefully to CNC. Reasonably/barely proficient with Fusion 360 and firmly committed to using/reusing materials I can scrounge out of the scrap pile. Started lurking Plasmaspider for proper grounding scheme for my small format, moveable table.

[plasmanewbie]

Welcome! Interested to see how you retrofit your pattern duplicator for cnc, post pics if you can. What plasma cutter are using on your duplicator right now?

[acourtjester]

DIY guys are always welcome here, you may need to change out some of the cabling to help against noise from a Plasma table. Brand of Plasma is the first step. Help with reconfiguring to get you going can be had here. Retired in Florida (:

[OldFatMan]

Thanks folks. I use a Prime Weld plasma. It is high frequency with pilot arc- hence the interest in proper grounding. Many, many years ago I used one of the early linde 3 phase machines- pretty sure it was high frequency start and we made it work on a oxy/fuel panto graph and proper grounding on that one was the key to making it work. Ive already hacked the trigger to use a switch on my stylus so going to the relay for that is easy enough. I'll fab a metal box for controls tomorrow and start mounting components to see if I can make it run without plasma first.

[acourtjester]

Having a plan will help you with the starting of you conversion. You can test your operations and software, you don't need plasma to do that. After it running and you add plasma then you will find out if you need to change it for a non-HF start.

[adbuch]

Started lurking Plasmaspider for proper grounding scheme for my small format, moveable table.

Welcome to the forum. I have my table grounding as shown in the diagram below.

PlasmaCAM Power and Grounding Diagram.jpg (104.61 KiB) Viewed 873 times

PlasmaCAM Power and Grounding Diagram.jpg (104.61 KiB) Viewed 873 times

There is a good discussion about this linked to below.


viewtopic.php?t=25456


David

[OldFatMan]

Thanks for the diagram- and the link. The controller portion on the Plasmacam Machine- assume it is a metal box and it is isolated from the table?

[adbuch]

It is mounted at the front left corner of the DHC/DHC2 tables and is in physical contact with the table/frame.

Same for the pipe cutter.

David

[OldFatMan]

Thanks. Ill try to start another topic in DIY section. Never figured out how to attach pictures so it may take me some time.

[adbuch]

How to attach a photo.
First click on the button below to switch to "Full Editor & Preview".
Then click on the button below labeled "Attachments".
Then click on the button below labeled "Add files".
Then select the photo you wish to upload.
Now click on "Place inline".
Now click on "Preview".
If you are happy with your image, then click "Submit"

[acourtjester]

Good info David, one thing I would add is when placing on the line, the image will appear where the cursor is. I tend to place them after any text I put in the post so they follow the text. But there are times when you may want to put text between images to call attention to each image as you go along. As david did in his second post above, before his last image.

[adbuch]

Good thought Tom! I do the same thing, and although I thought about it I failed to mention that the image attachment will be positioned where the cursor is in the window. I usually put them after the text, for a single image - but sometimes I put text between the images as accompanying descriptions. Thanks for pointing that out.

By the way, that Norton just happened to be in one of the folders on my desktop when I was doing the example. It does not belong to me, and a friend of mine sent me the photos for some feedback as he is planning on a possible purchase this week - it's up in Scottsdale. The seller wants $10K, which is a pretty good deal. I told my friend if he doesn't want it to just go ahead and bring it down to me and I will gladly buy it to add to my collection.

David

[OldFatMan]

Thanks- this is where I'm starting.

[adbuch]

That looks pretty neat! Will certainly get the job done for some of your projects. Even though I have a larger cutting table, one of those sure would be fun to play around with. Thanks for sharing your picture.
David