CNC Plasma Table Build - Precision, CandCNC etc

[ovrrdrive]

I've been working on this for a few months now and am finally getting around to a build thread. I posted this on pirate too but I also wanted to post it here for more feedback. Hope you guys don't mind.


A little history on me first... I got my first welder (MM180) about 8 months ago and before that my experience with working with metal were a hf 4" grinder with cutoff wheels and a drill. I always wanted to do it though and finally got around to it and love it. I got an Eastwood Versa Cut60 at the end of October and loved that even more. About the time I realized I didn't really have much hand/eye coordination and even less raw talent I saw my first cnc plasma vid and figured what the hell, even I could do that. I read for a few months and studied, put the non-cnc capable Eastwood up on CL and sold it, and started ordering parts at the end of December. Parts started showing up in January and I got started around the end of the month, working mostly a few hours after work and a little bit on the weekends.

It's been a great experience so far. Most of my welds are ok, some borderline and a few look great. Overall I think it ended up looking pretty damned good. I'm sure my methods and skill level isn't up to what most you are doing but it really feels like it turned out pretty good. From what I can figure out the CRS rails are the only thing that needs to be almost perfect and I ended up pretty happy with them.

Enough bs and on to the build. I'll try to add to the pics but they will do most of the talking for me.

This is the order from Precision Plasma:
Magnum HD II Gantry kit in 5x10
Velox Z breakaway mount

From Velox:
ZA-650P

From CandCNC:
Dragon Cut Linux 620-4 Bundle with Linux Computer
HyT Advanced Connection Kit B (without Hub)
SheetCAM for Linux

I decided to go with Precision Plasma LLC for the gantry kit. After emailing back and forth with Ron a few times I decided on the Magnum HD II kit because my goal is to build a versatile machine that can do several different tasks because right now I'm not really sure what I'll be doing with it. If something looks like it will generate more revenue I'll change directions mid stream. According to Ron if I want to do any routing the Magnum is the better gantry and 70% of the kits he sells to people go that route. I bought the kit in 5x10 even though I am only building a 5x5 kit right now because it's cheaper to order it up front and if the table makes money for me I'll do the expansion asap. For now the 5x5 kit will be plenty.

The kit from PPllc is very complete and well laid out. Everything is in bags and is separated by section with a bag sealer and labeled. Very nice stuff...

Steel was a ***** for me here. I ended up buying from the local scrap yard as they had the most in town and were easy to work with. The first order was just the 3x3's. The second got almost all of the rest except for the CRS rails that I had to drive to Orlando to get from another supplier as they couldn't even order it here. I spent about $600 at the scrap yard and $250 more for the CRS. Only have a pic of the first pickup but you've all seen steel before anyway...

Next to show up was the order from CandCNC and the PM65 from Weldersupply.com.

Construction started with the legs. I chose to use 1/8" wall tube to make it easier for me to weld. I figured I didn't want to spend half my time stitching holes up and the extra strength wouldn't hurt either. I drilled and tapped the 1/2" plate for the legs and welded them on. I modified them a little from Ron's plans as I never plan to bolt it to the floor anyway. The feet came from Amazon and at the time these were over half of the cost of the bigger feet so I figured I'd give them a shot.

I also modified the table a little. I lowered the bottom support to make enough room to mount the plasma and possibly a toolbox under the table in the future if I ever get ambitious. It worked out like I planned but it was really a ***** painting the underside of them. I welded the side on the floor... Not exactly straight and I paid for that later on but in the end they turned out OK.

On to the cross beams with a little help from a few straps...

Then the box from velox showed up... Very pretty.

When I bought steel, I had to buy whole sticks if it was new which most of it was so I had a lot left over. I would have used smaller tube for the cross beams but this was already paid for so I stuck a few pieces of 3x3 in there for extra support under the water table.

After learning I couldn't drill straight by hand for **** I picked up this drill-press from cl for $50. It made things a lot easier.

After thinking about drilling the CRS rails and the support for them I made this little stand for it to make it possible to drill them with the press. It worked well. I measured where the rails would be and built it to that height. Then I just wheeled it over and jacked up the table until it was tight under the bottom rail and did all the drilling.

Drilling and tapping the 46 holes in the gantry cross member... First time ever using taps for me too. The ratcheting tap handle from hf really made this easy... My first attempt at using transfer punches was a miserable failure. On my second attempt (thank goodness I had extra steel...) after a few YouTube videos it was almost perfect.

Gantry tacked and mocked up...

About this time the hf air dryer showed up. I had the issue with the manual wiring where nothing happened on first plug in until I switched the wires. I had a small cooling manifold on the wall I made out of copper tube so with a lack of proper hardware to install it I just hard plumbed it in for now. If I see a need in the future I'll cut it out and use some flexible hose to hook it in. It seems to work pretty well. We'll see if it lasts.

I still laugh about this... When I was hooking it up this fell out of it somewhere. It's funny that someone was not only smoking in the plant but felt it necessary to hide the **** inside of the machine...

Once everything was pretty much built I hit it with some self etching primer and sanded the piss out of it. I decided on going two tone on the gantry and using regal red on the rest of it. Yes I painted in the garage and didn't use drop cloths. It cleans up fairly easy with some paint thinner, acetone and elbow grease but I'm going to put a fresh coat of epoxy on it when I'm done building the table anyway. next time I will probably go ahead and put some plastic down though... Live and learn. lol

That pretty much gets this caught up to where I am now. This week I'll probably work on getting the motors and wires hooked up and try to get it moving by the end of next week hopefully. Then I'll probably get some sheet bent up and work on the water table.

More to follow as I come up with anything noteworthy. I don't have a timeline for the build. It's a no pressure - work on it as I have time kind of thing. I'm trying hard not to rush it but it's getting to the point where I'm ready to fire it up.

So, How am I doing so far?

 

[LXCam]

"How am I doing so far?"

Damn dude, you're a rockstar in my book. That's a very nice set up and I'm most impressed that you've only been doing metal for a short time, it really doesn't show. I can't wait to see how this works out for you and if you don't mind appx how much is a kit like that?

Thanks, Cam

 

[kazlx]

Looking good. If you need any help, just shout. Running older versions of all the same stuff.

 

[bullnerd]

Nice! Carriage looks really rigid.

Nice score on the drill press, but dang how hard did someone have to turn the vari speed handle to bend it!

 

[steel 35]

Good times

Wait till yer stuffing wires in that bladerunner

 

[ovrrdrive]

"How am I doing so far?"

Damn dude, you're a rockstar in my book. That's a very nice set up and I'm most impressed that you've only been doing metal for a short time, it really doesn't show. I can't wait to see how this works out for you and if you don't mind appx how much is a kit like that?

Thanks, Cam

Not including the PM65 I'm somewhere between $7-7500. I'll have to add everything up to be sure but it hasn't been too bad considering the options I went with. The PM65 was almost $3k by itself. That really hurt but I didn't want to spend all of this and end up with something that didn't work.

And I've only been working with metal a short time but I watched tons of shows on TV for as long as I can remember about it. Xtreme 4x4, all of Jesse James, OCC you name it. I like to think all of that helped out a lot but I can assure you the only pictures I shared don't show the blunders in it. lol

Looking good. If you need any help, just shout. Running older versions of all the same stuff.

You've already helped me out a ton. More than you realize in fact. I'm sure that color even looks familiar. lol

I'll probably take you up on that offer though. I'm going to give myself some time to learn the basics first.

Nice! Carriage looks really rigid.

Nice score on the drill press, but dang how hard did someone have to turn the vari speed handle to bend it!

Yeah no doubt. It was pretty neglected when I got it and completely rusted over. The variable speed mechanism was missing a washer under the clip holding it together so the bushing kept riding up making some terrible noises and binding it all up. Once I figured that out and put a washer in there and lubed it all up it works pretty well. This wasn't a really popular model and I understand why after playing with it. I thought I was going to kill it when I started drilling the rails when it was up on high.

It's pretty solid though and other than a new belt I think it will serve me just fine.

Good times

Wait till yer stuffing wires in that bladerunner

Thanks for the head's up... I'll do that on a weekend day so I won't be stressed out from work. It sounds like something I probably shouldn't play with when I have a short fuse. lol

 

[landlord30]

If its not too painful, a parts list would be great when you are all done.

Thanks

 

[ovrrdrive]

If its not too painful, a parts list would be great when you are all done.

Thanks

This is pretty close...

Just add a new monitor. I bought a new one for my desk and moved my old 24" Dell out into the garage. I'm sure there are more misc things too that I didn't keep track of.

Steel is a little high here too. If I had a better steel yard I'm sure I could have done better and I could also have saved some if I went with lighter gauge steel but like I mentioned above I figured the 1/8" wall would be easier for me to weld - which it was.

Also I see Ron is selling all of his kits now with the Velox Z included. That will save you some money right there even if just in shipping charges.

 

[ADSR]

Watching with interest. I will be building a table like this soon enough.

 

[600SL]

Subscribed

 

[Basher]

A fascinating project & excellently documented

Thanks for taking the time to post

I'm in for this one -
subscribed!

 

[ovrrdrive]

Thanks guys. Progress has been a little slow. When I was building the table I knew basically how it went together and what to do. Since I've started installing the motors, belt reductions and bearings it's been a learning process. Ron at Precision Plasma has been great and responds to my questions quickly no matter how dumb they are. lol

At one point I thought my frame was really out of square because the gantry was touching the stop one side but was almost an inch off on the other but it turns out the gantry was just tweaked a little from when I welded it together. I used a strap and pulled it to the stops on both sides and then tightened all of the bearings and it feels rock solid now. The x motor seems to be acting a little weird in that sometimes when I hit the jog on the keyboard it goes the wrong way until I let up and press it a few more times then it goes correctly. Tom thinks I just need to apply the updates to Command CNC but I'm thinking it might be a bad motor. I'm going to do all of the updates and finish tuning the gantry and go from there.

The water table is proving to be a bear too but that mostly due to my indecision about how I wanted to build it and also from not reading the parts list closely. I can't find a 6' wide piece of sheet around here so I bought a 5' piece and cut it off int he truck to around 68" so I could move it into the garage. I also got 10' of 3"x2" angle to use for 2 of the sides. My plan was to bend up 3" on 2 of the sides and then weld the angle to it for the other 2 but then after I read the cut sheet again the angle is cut to 66" long so everything I have is too short. lol

Due to the lack of a good fab shop around here I'm just going to buy some more angle and build it the way Ron indicated in the plans. Everyone that's done it that way has complained about it but it may be my last option without spending a mint on it. I'm not above getting it as close as possible and then either using silicone or fiberglass to seal it. Not at all. I'll update when I figure out what I'm doing.

A little more tuning and I have to finish hooking up the rest of the stuff from CandCNC for the plasma and I'll be ready to run a few test files on it.

 

[steel 35]

While your struggling with the water table think about raising your edges 1/4" above the slats! I went 1/8 and sure wish it was more.

 

[ovrrdrive]

While your struggling with the water table think about raising your edges 1/4" above the slats! I went 1/8 and sure wish it was more.

Is that just to keep the splashing down?

If I was getting it custom bent I could probably set it like that but I'll probably be stuck at whatever angle I can get. I'm going to cut the slats though. I guess I could always just make them shorter. Hmm...

Thanks for the tip.

 

[steel 35]

Is that just to keep the splashing down?

Yep! it can be horrible

 

[kkroger]

I'd go half inch if I did my water table again, Or maybe even more, so I could do submerged cutting on thicker materials... not worried about splashing so much... but submerged yes...

 

[kazlx]

I paid a sheetmetal shop to cut and brake up my water table. I think it was like $250 with the material if I remember right. They even welded the corners, so the whole thing is one piece minus the four corner welds. Best extra money I spent on the project. When I build another water table, the edges will definitely be taller than the cutting surface. The splashing drives me crazy.

Either that or make some sort of drip rails that go into the pan to basically contain all of the water.

 

[600SL]

It was great getting to see this project in person last week. It gave me quite a bit to think it out.

I'm still on schedule to purchase the Hypertherm 65 by the end of the month.

 

[ovrrdrive]

I paid a sheetmetal shop to cut and brake up my water table. I think it was like $250 with the material if I remember right. They even welded the corners, so the whole thing is one piece minus the four corner welds. Best extra money I spent on the project. When I build another water table, the edges will definitely be taller than the cutting surface. The splashing drives me crazy.

Either that or make some sort of drip rails that go into the pan to basically contain all of the water.

Man I'm even having trouble getting an estimate to bend me a table around here. You'd think I lived in total BFE or something. I'm going to try the one last fab shop left in town and see if they'll call me back. If that fails I guess I'm doing the perimeter welding thing. I hate to though because I know it will leak like crazy.

It was great getting to see this project in person last week. It gave me quite a bit to think it out.

I'm still on schedule to purchase the Hypertherm 65 by the end of the month.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I was able to help. I don't get to show off my handy work very often. It was my pleasure.

My wife really enjoyed playing in your friends car too. It made her day. Tell him I said thanks.

By the way, do you have a build thread for your Mercedes?

 

[mike13u]

Awesome build! Congrats. You are going to love running that beast. Hypertherm was the way to go. Settings out of the book are dialed 100%

I paid a sheetmetal shop to cut and brake up my water table. I think it was like $250 with the material if I remember right.

Joe always finding the deals...You went mild steel on yours?

OP - I'm probably way South of you, but if you are having trouble sourcing material/fab shops for something specific let me know.

 

[kazlx]

Yea mild steel. They had a good price getting the materials and everything. Went and picked up a fully welded pan.

 

[600SL]

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I was able to help. I don't get to show off my handy work very often. It was my pleasure.

My wife really enjoyed playing in your friends car too. It made her day. Tell him I said thanks.

By the way, do you have a build thread for your Mercedes?

Hello again ovrrdrive. I took your recommendation an just pulled the trigger on the Hypertherm 65 with both torches.

Mercedes Build Thread

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/performance-paddock/178997-m120-into-560sl-pictures.html

 

[sandmanxx]

Any updates ??

 

[ovrrdrive]

Finally yes I'm making progress again.

Turns out I did have a problem with one of the motors. Tom wanted me to update everything and setup all of the config files for the table before we started troubleshooting so I started reading... And reading, and reading... You get the idea. Well I finally made sense of all of it and got it setup and still had the issue so he agreed to cross ship me a motor and I sent it back. First time they tested it of course it worked perfectly but for some reason before they sent me back the same motor he tested it again and it had a loose connection in one of the wires (directional control) so they sent me a new one. I got it in last night and just installed it a few minutes ago and readjusted everything and it's working pretty well now. I ran one of the simulation files they send with it and it's running pretty true too.

I still have to install of the plasma stuff, the home switches and the ohmic sensor so I'm not cutting yet but I'm finally past the hurdle.

I also found a place in town that makes steel counter tops for restaurants that said they have a big metal brake and can get 6' wide sheet so I may have a line in on the water table too. Since I have the sheet of 16ga against the wal I'm going to cut it up in 2" strips to use as slats to get started and once they get too worn I'll get a piece of 1/8" and recut them. For now I just want to get the machine cutting without spending another huge chunk of money. I may just suspend them on some 1" tube temporarily and then get the water tray bent up in a few weeks after everything else is working. We'll see.

I did take a little more time getting the wires neat when I did it tonight. I stole a trick I saw them do in the head end at work and made a cable block to straighten and line the wires up and tied them in place. It worked pretty well and only took about 15 minutes to make.

Next I'll start hooking up the plasma controls, HyT and DTCIV and the home switches... Getting so close I can taste it.

I'm still having a slight issue where the gantry will sometimes kick a little sideways when I change directions with it. I think it's just not perfectly square. Anyone else seen this?

Here's a few pics of the highlights from tonight. Oh and the stars look a little rough but that's just because the torch height controller isn't hooked up yet and I just had a marker zip tied to the machine torch. I had to get it started and push it up and down while it moved to make contact.

 

[steel 35]

With the charge pump on (Motors energized) push and pull all the motors and feel for anything loose, and get use to checking this. I think something needs tightened.

 

[ovrrdrive]

I didn't even think about that... Thanks steel.

 

[600SL]

Great to see you back on it. I may have to take another trip down south.

 

[airmissle]

This is an awesome thread. Subscribing.

 

[Racerx1194]

any updates

 

[ovrrdrive]

Sadly not a whole lot. Life is busy, the garage is hot, and I've been procrastinating a little. lol

I did throw together a cutting surface with scrap steel I had from either buying the wrong stuff, changing my mind and extra from buying whole sticks of special order steel during the table build. It will be ok to start cutting on when I get to that point. Hopefully I'll make a little money then get a water tray bent up and build something more permanent. The only weakness to it is that it's the 16GA sheet instead of 1/8" but it's solid enough to at least cut on. And it was free and can be cut back apart when I'm done with it and reused.

As for progress on the table itself, I'm almost embarrassed to say I'm struggling with hooking up the plasma controls, DHTC and feather touch a little. The systems are gone over in excessive detail in the manuals but there isn't a one page "quick start guide" to just show you how to hook everything up. I get home after work and read and read and read and get frustrated and bail on it. They assume at least a little working knowledge of the systems I guess and people like me that buy and figure out later are their worst nightmare lol. I've finally gotten back to just working on it one system at a time and am making progress again, but I'm also cruising craigslist for portable air conditioning systems too so I can get the temperatures in the garage a little more manageable. Even at 9PM with all of the fans running it is still pretty damned hot out there.

To make matters worse we're doing the all digital conversion at my work right now and the workload is pretty astronomical which is cutting into my working and initiative too. I'll probably take another vacation soon without the family and make the table my priority.

I'm getting through it piece by piece just making sure to not screw anything up. I've resisted the urge to lean on CandCNC for it until I really need them.

Thanks for asking.

 

[Racerx1194]

im building the same table as you right now just 4 x 8 but your alot farther along then i am

 

[ovrrdrive]

im building the same table as you right now just 4 x 8 but your alot farther along then i am

Good. When you get to hooking up the CPC, RS485, DTHC and feather touch you can tell me how to do mine. lol

I did pick up a portable Ac and just got finished insulating my garage door last night so that should hopefully cool things off a little out there. I don't know if it's really that hot or if I'm just getting too old for this **** but damn. Between the heat and stress at work I've taken way too long on this. I'll probably take a week off here in a month or so and come hell or high water get it up and running.

Racerx do you have a thread anywhere?

 

[Racerx1194]

didnt do a build thread but here are some pics

 

[Racerx1194]

few more pics ive probley should of taken more

 

[ovrrdrive]

Got some vacation time this week and got inspired. I noticed a few weeks ago that Precision Plasma edited their website and was now recommending a different home switch. The little micro switches they originally recommended going with are a complete pita. I was in the process of working them in when I saw the new one and just ordered them. if you're in the same situation I'd definitely say go with the new one's. they were also available on Amazon prime. $24 and 2 days and they were sitting on my doorstep.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0050GLF4Y/?tag=atomicindus08-20

They're well worth what they ask for them and seem like they are pretty high quality. Easy to mount and very adjustable. I just lined them all up with spots on the gantry and this part was done. You can see the other micro switch I was trying to use in the pic. These are night and day better all the way around.

I also basically finished up everything else today too. I did figure out that CandCNC sent me one wrong connector with the kit. I emailed them today and hopefully will get the correct one soon. It's a 5 pin connector that goes on one of the boards in the control box. I didn't see a way to get around having it so I'm going to have to wait. It only controls the feather touch system though so it shouldn't be a huge holdup. CandCNC actually recommends setting everything up without the feather touch so this is just going to make do it their way.

The RS485 is working along with pretty much everything else. I can fire the torch remotely and move and jog everything. The only real problem I'm having is with the Z axis and the touch off sequence. I'm thinking it is probably something I wired wrong or some weird setting somewhere. Basically it will home Z perfectly but if I do the Z touchoff if goes down and keeps going until it pops the torch off the magnetic holder and hits the -.75 limit where it stops with an error. I tried everything I could think of. It's probably something I setup for the feather touch that's acting up because I don't have the feather touch running. i saw sever things that get reversed when you set it up and I'm not sure where to start looking. Seems like it should be pretty simple though.

Everything seems like it's working better than I anticipated. Hopefully I figure it out without doing the walk of shame to Tom and Luke over at CandCNC. lol

 

[ovrrdrive]

Btw racerx, that seems like the start of a very nice build... Start a thread so I can follow your progress. The more the merrier.

 

[Racerx1194]

Im just now getting to the fun part of drilling and taping the gantry

 

[Racerx1194]

it is a heavy beast

 

[ovrrdrive]

Luke got the right connector out to me in two days and now it's up and running. Finally. I still have an intermittent issue with the z touch off but if I go at it a few times it will fire off and launch the cut. A few small issues left to figure out but now the fun begins.

 

[ovrrdrive]

The learning curve is really quick on this table. Made my first custom file last night and tweaked it a little today. It's cutting pretty well now. I set a few corner rules and changed a few start points and then turned the DTHC off on it because it's so small. It did error out at the end but it was done anyway. For some reason it ended up with two extra dots at the end and one of them threw the G38 error on me because the steel was gone.

Baby steps.

Btw, I'm Craig. lol