JamesCH95 We’re in the market for a CNC plasma and are new to both. We were looking at PlasmaCam for the table, but your finished products have me sold. Our only concern is that right now no one on the team knows G code for the programming. (1) We’re very proficient in solidworks and other CAD programs, will it be difficult to pick up? (2) Is the Torchmate software what you actually designed these pieces in? (3) Could we get a decent set up for about 15K?
What exactly have we sold you on?
G-Code is pretty easy to pick up as it’s an extremely basic language. However, very little work is actually done in straight G-Code. About all I ever do directly in G-Code is change feed-rate commands.
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Everything in our process is pretty easy and I was able to learn/figure it out in an hour or two. Typically this process is: design part in solidworks, make 1:1 scale drawing of part, export drawing as DXF, in TorchMate CAD turn the DXF into a torchpath with lead-ins and lead-outs, transfer to CNC control computer, convert DXF to G-Code with built-in software, edit feedrate if needed, hit go.
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We design everything in SolidWorks, Torchmate CAD is there to make toolpaths from those designs, although it is also capable of simple design operations. There are MANY different CAM programs that can perform this function: MasterCAM, ProNest, BobCAD/CAM (what I use for my CNC router), and many others. Talk to whatever vendor you wind up buying from and see what they recommend.
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That’s a loaded question! I would strongly encourage you to talk to Hypertherm and Torchmate and see what they offer for educational institution deals. Torchmate has a number of DIY plasma cutter kits and small-format tables (2’x2’, 2’x4’, 4’x4’) that would probably be quite budget friendly.
A Hypertherm Powermax 85 power supply will run you $3k or more at retail prices, plus consumables and a torch. You will also need to invest in either a water table or a very strong ventilation system to extract fumes from the cutting area. Do not cheap out on fume control, plasma power supply, or cutting torch, these are the most critical parts of a CNC plasma table as far as I can tell.
I’m not an expert CNC plasma table operator. Personally I have only been using them for a few months. Your best bet is to talk to Torchmate and Hypertherm to get setup. I have, however, been using manual plasma torches for a long time. This is where my strong preference for Hypertherm equipment comes from. That, and they’re a US company that treats their employees REALLY well, doesn’t out-source anything that I know of, and is head-quartered in the next town over from where I live.
This work is just beautiful. Well done.
With SolidWorks 2013 you can create dxf output from the Flat Pattern without setting up a drawing.
You can create *.dxf files of sheet metal flat patterns from sheet metal part documents without flattening the model or creating a drawing. This helps to export Dxf files to other applications, such as punch press or laser-cutter programming software.
Use one of these methods:
Click File > Save As and select Dxf (*.dxf) for Save as type.
Right-click Flat Pattern in the FeatureManager design tree and select Export to DXF/DWG.
Marie
This work is just beautiful. Well done.
With SolidWorks 2013 you can create dxf output from the Flat Pattern without setting up a drawing.
You can create *.dxf files of sheet metal flat patterns from sheet metal part documents without flattening the model or creating a drawing. This helps to export Dxf files to other applications, such as punch press or laser-cutter programming software.
Use one of these methods:
Click File > Save As and select Dxf (*.dxf) for Save as type.
Right-click Flat Pattern in the FeatureManager design tree and select Export to DXF/DWG.
Marie
Thanks. I used that method to export a DXF last night, it worked very well. Great tip!
Our parts making continues! We had a sort of run of the mill (sorry) part to make, and I thought the setup and how we decided to make it was interesting.
Here are the parts, tube plugs being made on our prototrak knee mill:
Those little plugs will end up welded in the ends of some tubes, and center through hole in each will be tapped. for reference, the OD is (I think) .620". We needed 24 total.
Because the OD and surface finish of the plug, and the diameter of the center hole had some fine tolerances these parts were poor candidates for plasma cutting. The plasma cutter is slick but doesn’t do fine detail in thick aluminum well. Turning the parts on a lathe is the obvious choice however our lathe was busy at the time and, for a variety of reasons, wasn’t a great solution for this part. That leaves the cnc mill!
Entering the program in using the prototrak ‘conversational’ interface was fairly easy, if a little laborious. The 24 hole array was drilled first and ran short wood screws into the wood backing plate to hold each part in place after it was trepanned out of the plate.
For those curious; the tool is a HSS 3/16 end mill with no special attributes. It ran at 2000 RPM, .1"ish doc, 6ipm with a mist coolant and was pretty happy.
The mill:
Chassis plates done.
Profiled on the CNC plasma cutter, holes and slots drilled and milled on a CNC Prototrak.
Assembly starts tonight!
You could probably cut out some cool stuff on those chassis plates as well
Just a thought 
Thanks for posting your manufacturing process, it’s always fun to see how different teams get things done! I’m interested to see how the tube plugs (and tubes) are worked into your design.
Nice work 95. I can see some similar features between some of our parts. Cough!
Mind if we send some parts to be thrown on the plasma! 
The hypertherm looks way better than the miller we have. Are miller broke down so we are hopefully getting a hypertherm to replace it. The miller took days of tuning to do mediocre cuts.
If you really wanted to, and brought the sheet metal over, I’m sure we could work something out.
Putting my CNC router to work making the ‘deck’ for our robot.
Setup details: 4’x4’ Torchmate Small Shop Machine router table, 100IPM X,Y travel, 10IPM plunge, 1/16in DOC, 1/8in OD 2-flute down-cut carbide router bit, 24,000rpm spindle speed. This whole setup is considerably less expensive than a plasma cutter table, and can do more materials to a better tolerance, but at a much slower rate. All of this cutting was about an hour’s worth of time, not including programming or setup.
Apologies for the cell-phone picture and video, best I had at the time!
That point during build season when you finally have enough parts to start assembling…
Mmmmm double sided pickup?
No no no no no… that would be crazy talk…
…yes.
Pneumatic brakes to resist pushing? I like it.
Wow looks great. I hope one day my team will have the resources for a plasma cutter, it’s amazing what you guys can fabricate this early in the season.
Thanks!
Partnering with a vocational school was the best move we’ve ever made. I strongly encourage other teams to search out vocational schools in their areas.
Weekend update. Lots of assembly got done.
