henry Kadzielski
Member
- Messages
- 1,175
- Location
- Australia Wollongong
Good morning gents.
I have both HF and pilot arc start plasma machines. HF is generally early tech, works fine but on CNC systems the HF starts can and do cause havoc with computers. Pilot arc dosen't have that problem and is the way most new higher end machines are going. I have constructed a cnc machine from scratch and posted a vid of it working for someone on this forum several months ago. I have a Hypetherm plasma and it has the interface to control the air pressure and cutting current from the control software, very handy.
There are many things to consider when trying to construct a machine, the biggest is whether all the little bits will cooperate and work as you would expect. If you haven't built one before, pitfalls and traps are many.
The machinery and components that you select will have a profound effect on the final products that you will be trying to produce.
This process can be extremely satisfying if you are quite handy and have the necessary tooling and equipment to construct the hardware, also a good understanding of computers is also required.
However I found that the mechanical construction was the easy part, I probably would have poured petrol on it half a dozen times before it was operational. In the end I didn't realise how close I was to a operational machine without the help from another CNC self builder, which helped me over the phone with the software
I have both HF and pilot arc start plasma machines. HF is generally early tech, works fine but on CNC systems the HF starts can and do cause havoc with computers. Pilot arc dosen't have that problem and is the way most new higher end machines are going. I have constructed a cnc machine from scratch and posted a vid of it working for someone on this forum several months ago. I have a Hypetherm plasma and it has the interface to control the air pressure and cutting current from the control software, very handy.
There are many things to consider when trying to construct a machine, the biggest is whether all the little bits will cooperate and work as you would expect. If you haven't built one before, pitfalls and traps are many.
The machinery and components that you select will have a profound effect on the final products that you will be trying to produce.
This process can be extremely satisfying if you are quite handy and have the necessary tooling and equipment to construct the hardware, also a good understanding of computers is also required.
However I found that the mechanical construction was the easy part, I probably would have poured petrol on it half a dozen times before it was operational. In the end I didn't realise how close I was to a operational machine without the help from another CNC self builder, which helped me over the phone with the software