New Member from Palmer Alaska

[kch]

Hi All. Appreciate this forum. I am preparing for retirement and wanting to do something enjoyable, which is fabricating and small scale manufacturing. I just moved so no shop but building a one. Once thaw occurs will pour for the heated slab in this pole shop construction. I am learning Fusion 360 and once the shop is up will study up on what CNC Plasma table to buy. Would like to cut 5/8" may to 3/4" and then move into other CNC tools, hopefully a Mill and Lath too. I want to make an environment for the Grandkids and others to come in and learn and to eventually mentor CAD, etc. I have a Wood MIll and will make timberframe products and plan to make CNC tools to mill the wood. I appreciate and admire what I can learn from others and want to help younger folks in my area to see there are other options. I have a older JD 2155 tractor and KX57 which I plan to fabricate and build a SSQA and the attachments. Again thank for this forum. Ken

[plasmanewbie]

Welcome Ken! Sounds like a great plan, very exciting. Post progress pics if you can. Wishing you great luck

[adbuch]

Welcome aboard Ken! And thanks for the email. It sounds like you have a great plan laid out for your future. Lots of fun to be had! Fusion 360 is great fun, and I heartily recommend the set of Fusion 360 tutorial lessons by Arnold Rowntree. I went thru Arnold's lessons twice a few years ago and he helped me to make the transition from SolidWorks to Fusion 360, which I find much more "user friendly". Langmuir Systems also has some nice Fusion 360 tutorials geared towards cnc plasma cutting, while Arnold's are geared more towards solid modeling - which is a must if you ever plan to do any 3D printing.

David

[AndyZ]

Hi Ken, I'm new to the Plasma world as well and a new member here. I live over in Wasilla. I just picked up a 4x4 PlasmaCAM used and am learning how to program with the help of several folks on this site.

[adbuch]

Hi Ken, I'm new to the Plasma world as well and a new member here. I live over in Wasilla. I just picked up a 4x4 PlasmaCAM used and am learning how to program with the help of several folks on this site.

Andy - were you able to cut your tree bears project from a single sheet? If so, let us know how you made out with it. Perhaps even post a few photos.

Thanks,
David

[AndyZ]

Hey David, Yes I was, see attached. Still struggling with getting the alignment perfect when indexing the sheet, but on such a large piece it isn't critical. Where it has cost me some money is cutting out the replacement grates for the machine. I want those to be spot on so I had an offset in the overlapping grates and needed to recut some of them. I really appreciate your help. Every time I get into the software I am figuring something else out.

I hap a couple events last night where the machine stopped and said it had a "Critical Communications Error". I checked the data cable which seemed tight. Restarted the machine and all seems well. Any thoughts? (Sorry for hijacking your thread Ken)

[adbuch]

Andy - that turned out great! Here are some tips on resolving your communication error problem. It has also been reported that LED shop lights may cause communications errors. By the way, I think Robert Johnson sells plans and/or kits for an improved grate system for the Plasmacam 4x4 tables. I have also seen drawings for making replacement grate tips/points so that the entire grate does not need to be replaced when the tips wear out.


David

[Joe Jones]

I hap a couple events last night where the machine stopped and said it had a "Critical Communications Error". I checked the data cable which seemed tight. Restarted the machine and all seems well. Any thoughts? (Sorry for hijacking your thread Ken)

Make sure you are using a parallel cable that is IEEE-1284 compliant. The parallel cable should not be longer than 10 or 12 feet, although SOME people seem to get away with using much longer cables . Remove any cheap Chinese LED lights hanging over the table or the PC. They SCREAM dirty RF noise that the PlasmaCam table receives through the parallel cable, causing the communication between the table and the controller box to be scrambled. REMOVE your 5G cell phone from your hip or pocket and place it 30 feet or more away from the controller and the PC. A cell phone sends out pings to communicate with cell towers, and the parallel cable can pick up those signals. Do not plug your table controller into a GFI or GFCI outlet. It must receive pure sine wave AC power directly from the panel. It is best to get a GOOD UPS unit and plug both the PC and the table controller into it. The UPS unit will filter out line noise and minimize the changes of communication errors.

Joe

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberpower- ... Id=6408459

[rdj357]

The parallel cable should not be longer than 10 or 12 feet, although SOME people seem to get away with using much longer cables .

The cables I sell are engineered and made by AXXON, the people who manufacture the card sold by PlasmaCAM (and myself of course). They are available in a 10' or 15' length and again, specifically designed for our tables so they work fine. I've heard of people using much, much (50') longer cables with success but I'll never be recommending that. lol