pic: Iron Lions plasma plate

[audietron]

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[JamesCH95]

Cool!

We had great luck in plasma-cutting 1/16in ID pilot holes with our plasma table and then drilling them out to size. Unless you have a fancy 'true hole' setup I think that piloting is the way to go.

[wasayanwer97]

Looks pretty good!

Over the past few seasons, we've been doing a lot of work with the plasma mill one of our alumni built.

Just from experience, you're really going to want to undersize and drill/bore/ream all your precise holes.

As for your missing chunks, they look like they're probably just machine slop, but they look large enough to potentially be small tool path errors. (At least on those circular holes in the corners.) Not sure what sort of access to your machine you have, but I'd try and see if you can further tune/calibrate it.

[Tyler2517]

When we had our metal shop the plasma cam was out bread and butter. We got it to run aluminum really well with a lot of work. It was our big shiny thing we did up tell we lost the shop. Drilling/reaming out the holes is most definitely the best idea.
If you are running aluminum in the future Just run it fast, really fast so that it wont gum up.

[colin340]

has anyone tried a spiral in ???? for holes

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Tyler2517

When we had our metal shop the plasma cam was out bread and butter. We got it to run aluminum really well with a lot of work. It was our big shiny thing we did up tell we lost the shop. Drilling/reaming out the holes is most definitely the best idea.
If you are running aluminum in the future Just run it fast, really fast so that it wont gum up.

All we did to have (what I consider) great results in aluminum was to use the aluminum cut chart provided by the torch manufacturer (Hypertherm) with fine-cut consumables. We were landing in the 0.010-0.015in tolerance range.

If you (general statement to the forum) don't have a Hypertherm torch and power supply, stop messing around and get a Hypertherm torch and power supply. All the difference in the world.

Originally Posted by colin340

has anyone tried a spiral in ???? for holes

Do you mean spiral out? Is there a reason you think that would help? Most cuts are made with a small 'lead in' arc already.