Agroshield
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Branching off from the laser-cut fixture table thread, https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/laser-cut-fixture-table.114945/ I am after some design guidelines or rules of thumb on tab and slot construction.
This information is difficult to find online. About the only way at the moment is to beg or buy dxfs from various sources, measure what others have done and see if any pattern emerges.
There have been threads here and elsewhere where tab/slot clearance has been discussed, so this is OK, as well as tab projection (flush or recessed for plug welding).
What is difficult to find is tab length and frequency, so if anyone has anything to say on this, I would be grateful.
I know in the thread above that a couple of people have offered to share their dxfs, so copies of those would be appreciated.
As an example, say we are making a 1m x 1m table from 10mm plate. How many tabs would you put along its length? Or, the same thing, what spacing would they have?
What length is the tab itself? How does tab length correlate with material thickness?
My aim is to produce something like the module shown between 5:07-6:00 in this video,
where 'lego' is replaced by 'fixture table'.
Further food for thought is here:
where the part he models is like a very poor man's fixture table. The take away here is how simple and quick it is (with the sliders) to configure it to your needs without needing to open a CAD file and edit it, with the possibility of missing something important as you resize it.
In all this, the finished product would be something that you do not need a CAD program or skills to use. For an end user, Uncle Doubleboost would be typical. It would be someone who is computer savvy but not a designer (and not a designer of parts that have to fit together). He just puts length, width, thickness, hole diameter and spacing into the widget and out comes the dxf files for his plasma. And two minutes before he sparks up, he finds he has no 6mm plate, but has a piece of 8mm - the rejigging of the dxfs should be as simple as changing one number in the input.
Thanks.
This information is difficult to find online. About the only way at the moment is to beg or buy dxfs from various sources, measure what others have done and see if any pattern emerges.
There have been threads here and elsewhere where tab/slot clearance has been discussed, so this is OK, as well as tab projection (flush or recessed for plug welding).
What is difficult to find is tab length and frequency, so if anyone has anything to say on this, I would be grateful.
I know in the thread above that a couple of people have offered to share their dxfs, so copies of those would be appreciated.
As an example, say we are making a 1m x 1m table from 10mm plate. How many tabs would you put along its length? Or, the same thing, what spacing would they have?
What length is the tab itself? How does tab length correlate with material thickness?
My aim is to produce something like the module shown between 5:07-6:00 in this video,
Further food for thought is here:
In all this, the finished product would be something that you do not need a CAD program or skills to use. For an end user, Uncle Doubleboost would be typical. It would be someone who is computer savvy but not a designer (and not a designer of parts that have to fit together). He just puts length, width, thickness, hole diameter and spacing into the widget and out comes the dxf files for his plasma. And two minutes before he sparks up, he finds he has no 6mm plate, but has a piece of 8mm - the rejigging of the dxfs should be as simple as changing one number in the input.
Thanks.
