Sold the RV.

Decided to finally get the cnc plasma together. Which required not only building the table and sourcing everything, but also had to finish my shop room. Been a lot of evenings and early mornings but it's all coming along rather well. Still more work ahead of me.

http://plasmaspider.com/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=22437

Are you BSME!

Very cool Dan, I remember you mentioning it in the past.

Lookin good.

Thanks, man.

My kids are 2 & 5 and I needed to get this thing up and rolling before they get older and into sports, plays, stuff in general. Really handy they're in bed by 8:00pm, which makes pretty much 9-midnight my "shift" a few nights a week for working on whatever.

Best part is that my wife is WAAAAAAY into this project. Time and money spends so so so much more simple when she's on board, lol. Plus I'm lucky the RV finally sold, otherwise I was gonna' have to sell the RZR to fund this project.

Holy crap, you must have one hell of a shop . Now I might have to bull doze mine LOL.
When I was in welding school in 1982 we had a torch table that you could take a piece of chalk and draw something and then the torch head would cut that pattern. I never seen that before and at the time was totally amazed, it was cool. Looking foreword to see what your first piece will look like.

Gonna be a fairly steep learning curve once the machine is together. I haven't worked with Linux since 1999, but it also hasn't really changed much, lol. I've really only played with g-code intermittently with some other cnc work. Got a lot of reading and lessons to sit through!

Most the local sheet metal shops now have these they are way cool looking forward to seeing what you use it for, you have any files to burn out yet? I found some online and downloaded was going to take them to a local shop and burn out some I will try to find them Sunday and post so you can play.

Cant wait to see the cnc program details.

I agree with all - Looking great Dan.

Maybe you could look into Aspire Software by Vectric for designing your tool paths. It will import and export most any format plus it is a very easy learning curve with excellent and free online support. I use it in front of a CNC router running shopbot control software (also well supported online for free) and have had great luck with it.

Best of luck with it.

Using CommandCNC and Sheetcam on a Linux PC.

Finally got the energy cable chain mounted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uom_N2cOcYA

Note: Shop and table are a mess from all the idea mashing and the air line plumbing.

More shop air plumbing, a little shop wiring....and it will soon be time to install the cnc controls.

Part of me wishes I'd just take a 4 day weekend and finish it, but this project is getting done in 3-4hr buckets in the evening.

That's gona be a nice set up. Jealous.
I hope you get enough recovery on your investment and time.

CNC plasma machine is still in the "wiring" stage. I had hoped to have it wired and running some tests by Easter, but free time has been a hot commodity. The pesky kids, wife, family, job, house, holidays getting in the way, lol. I bought the electronics "bundle" with all the bells & whistles, so there's a ton of wiring. 4 motors, 6 limit switches, current meter, feather touch, RS485, monitor, PC tower, UPS....it's a lot of shiz.

Yesterday I landed a couple of good scores though for the shop...

1. Bought a 16ga 48" finger brake for $800, USA-made Ropp-Whitney.

2. Got a Pexto 36" power slip roller for *FREE*. More USA stuff. Just needs a new speed controller, but it also has a manual-crank. Has 3 grooves for rod and 2 grooves for bar, too. Rated at 22ga@36" sheet, but it's capable of 18ga mild steel @24" and even thicker in smaller widths and smaller bend increments. Pays to know people who have WAAAAY to much equipment on their books. ;)