MechTorch! The First Mechmate Plasma #58 - Winston-Salem, US
 

We are starting a mechmate as a class project for Motion Control II and III class project at University of North carolina School of the Arts. the course is part of the graduate level Stage Automation program.

We are currently working towards a machine with a Plasma Torch and a 4'x4' cutting area.

We are in a research ad development phase getting all the parts and information together, we hope to begin building the structure soon.

Welcome Guys!

Hey Guys,

Good luck with the build...I'll be watching with interest. I am a '93 MFA TD graduate student of NCSA (or UNCSA as ya'll know it) and my wife is a '92 BFA Scenic Artist. Miller and Grillo will remember me and probably, Booth (although Booth was just making his entrance as a faculty member as I was making my "grand" Grad School "exit"...long story about my final year...which I am sure you learned the "first" week.......).

Ya'll will learn a lot here...I don't have a MechMate but have earnestly studied this site (for over three years) and have a CNC based loosely on Gerald's Mechmate design; R&P using Gecko 203v's and a PMDX break out board which I have been running for nearly two years (mine is cheaply built out of 8020, steel and spruce). Not nearly as robust as a MM but it has been carving signs which I can sell to tourists and support my family for the whole of that two years (leaving me lots of time to lurk and read this website while the machine works).

You will learn a lot from Sean R. in this project. We overlapped only by a year in W-S but I have learned a lot watching my fellow NCSA student's multiple builds (and the rest of these great guys and their builds on this website) even many years later after graduation. Sean has a huge understanding of the control and building aspects of this project. Looking forward to watching your build as the principles "outwork" me...I wish it could learn to "out sell" me.

Good Luck,
Carl McCoy
'93 "tsmgo" MFA of NCSA

Hey Carl,
Nice to hear from you. If you get chance, late winter term we should have something to show off if you come by campus. Great to hear from you.
Sean

Mechmate Plasma - Winston-Salem, US
 

We have started our Mechmate Plasma.

We got the steel cut for the base table. And have most of the welding done.

We are finalizing the drawings for the control side of things.

This should be an interesting build. Another Mechmate first. :) Good luck guys.

I had not realized Sean had already dubbed this MechTorch.

We keep finding more parts andmore ifo as we go.

Just curious ;-)
 

Will there be a pure plasma machine - or - with a router as an option - maybe even both :)? ..
- Yes, I know that plasma is/can bee "dirty", so it will be nice to see your table solution.
Regardless, I am still curious :D and GOOD LUCK !!!

/ oopz

The class can name the machine anything they want - as long as they finish it! I'll be watching for post's when I am not on campus. :)
As far as machine specifications, I will leave the real particulars to the class to post and keep you all informed of the progress. Class over the past 2 days has resulted in a machine table being fabricated, welded and electronics being chosen. I have donated an extra completed z slide from machine #5 for the build to speed things along.

Particulars for now (subject to change)

• 48 x 48 net cutting area
• x and y will be OM 7.2 geared steppers (heavy gantry)
• z1 - nongeared stepper
• z2 - nongeared stepper
• z1 will be torch
• z2 will be spindle/router engraving or metal cutting device
• THC controller with arc control
• "other electronics and i/o as we get fancy"

Have fun on your build Moco, I built one a couple years ago, not from the MechMate plans, just my own design. One thing you might want to consider is that sheetmetal comes a variety of sizes, 4 x 8, 5 x 10, etc. (here in the us anyways) I made mine 5 x 6 cutting area beacuse I could get 5 x 10 sheets cheaper and I would cut them in half and be able to use the whole sheet (my cut area is 5 x 6). Just a thought and good luck. I had alot of problems with noise at the beginning, make sure everything is isolated.
Here is a pic of my plasma.

Table construction
 

Base table under construction in shop

frame is 2"x3"x 1/4" rectangular tube

This week we have been getting purchases underway, about half done there. We spent some time on the table. And clarified some of the electrical drawings. Our batch of laser cut parts arrived today, very nicely done. Time to get some work done in the shop.

A good week
 

We had a good week.

Purchasing underway, and parts coming in the door. Thanks to all those helping with the process..

A few minor purchases left to make, but ready for the shop to get rolling.

The table is up on its feet. The X Rails have been cut and ground.

Looking forward to more progress next week.

Looking good.

Are you going to use Airflow exhaust or are you going to use a water table?

Mike

we are planning to use airflow exhaust. our metal shop has a decent exhaust system in place, so we are going to let that handle the fumes.

pardon my ignorant, what is airflow exhaust?

Ken,

On a plasma table basically they will place a skirt around the bottom of the table and slats across the working area where they will lay the steel that will be cut.

Then they will hook a "vacuum hose" (Large suction pipe) to the skirt. When the plasma is cutting this suction will then pull air down into the table along with the smoke that is created when cutting with Plasma. This "Exhaust" system is then vented outside or ran through some kind of filter system.

Plasma generates a nasty smoke. What looks like smoke is actually vaporized metal and left unchecked can cause all kinds of strange problems in your shops electronics and is toxic to breath.

Hope that helps explain it.

Mike

I hope the Green police don't find out about these fumes going into the atmosphere... :rolleyes:

Thanks Mike, I don't have much experience with CNC Plasma cutting. Always has the misconception that a overhead suction hood over the table like those in Chinese restaurant & water bath tray beneath the table/grill but apparently it is not as easy.

John, I'm neither a tree huger nor avid intentional polluting the earth. BUT lets be realistic, we human are the biggest pollutant, any human activity will contributes to polluting the earth, BUT what can we do? Sometimes, making things green actually contributes to more devastating effects... Cow fart & burps Methane, padi field emits methane as well, we upset the CO2 balance just by having metal & plastics objects around us, don't forget about flying & driving around... how about heating & refrigeration.... the list goes on & on.... I never believe in so call "green police"... this is solely a personal opinion, you may have opinions of your own.

Okay... :rolleyes: I am an Amerikaner living in Germany. We don't get NFL broadcast here... sooooo. I had a friend send me a copy of the program... :D
This thread reminded me of this commercial from Audi...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVhT7P0lDfI

Midweek progress report
 

The team has been hitting it pretty hard the past couple days. We have most of our parts in house and fabrication well in hand. The control cabinet is underway.

Very exciting these days.

Notice that you have the rails cut & ground - that was a major hurdle. Nice progress!

Nice progress!

Looks like you are making great progress Moco. As a Class of 82 D&P TD grad it does me proud.

Thanks

We are plugging away pretty strongly. This is the last full week of winter term. We are a mixed class of second and thrid year grads, and fourth year undergrads.

It is a pretty fun project too.

progress on a monday
 

we made quite a bit of progress on the project today.

managed to get most of the brackets mounted today, hoping to get the cable chain mount attached, and the moutn squared away for the control box.

wiring on the control box goes well. more to follow soon

I am very happy to see so much work on my visit for instruction this week. The winter storms kept my last visit from happening.

If you all look closely, you will see the 2 Z slides in the y-car. A premamba slide with the short stroke on the "away from 0,0" side and the Mamba long slide on the "near o,o" side of the car.

Very proud of the MOCO teams' accomplishments this week.

So is there a reason for two Z slides? Or is this just a fit test?

How is the range of motion on the table. ie how big is the work area?

Have you decided on a THC (Torch Height Control) ?

A few to look at.

http://www.soundlogicus.com/thc300b.htm
http://www.soundlogicus.com/thc300a.htm



Mike

Mike
I will chime in for the MOCO class.
The Net cutting area is nominally 48x48. But really 52x52.
The double z-slide is so the machine can do a few things well. (fairly multipurpose for the university's use)
- Torch with THC controlled Plasma head on Z1
- Router/Spindle/Drill on Z2 for engraving/marking and spot drilling of parts before cutting them out.
- Router for light aluminum plate milling if necessary.
- The Z2 will have the Quick Disconnect plate to allow changeout of the Porter cable 690 router or "other drill motor of the day" for making holes or center marks.
- The THC/BOB unit is the MP3000 from CandCNC.

All is going well and maybe have mechanical work finished today. (rack attachment on all axis', cable chain management and fingered table bed are on the short list this week)

....now I will wait for the class to finish updating the thread!

I had hoped to be up this week to come for a visit. When will you be back there again? I will be in the area on the 1st and 2nd of April.

1st and 2nd of april most of us will be at a technical theatre conference in kansas city. we are in session through the end of may.

sean leaves tomorrow, and we are currently scheduling his next trip.

let us know when you will be visiting we will be happy to arrange a tour

Cool, I know where Kansas City is. Maybe we could get together for a beer.

...sounds like a NCSA D&P meet up with the crew traveling is in order. Good luck and have fun in K-city. Eat some good BBQ for me :)

We had our final class of the term today. Made short lists of things left to do for both the machine and the control. Next week is spring break. We may get a little done but are not going to push it. When we get for next term we should be able to polish off the lists pretty quick.

We've done a layout for our cable chain and put most of the finishing touches on the control cabinet. As soon as we get the holes drilled and tapped into the table base we will be able to finish wiring the control cabinet and getting power to the motors.

Ben, I just noticed your rails are mounted on rectangular tubes. Is that more cost effective or just what was available? either way I like the "out side the box" thinking... :)

moco, feel free to jump in with corrections but I think the idea was to build the table base out of the same stock so all our cuts and scrap were of the tame type and also to add weight to the base. I believe we used 2x3" tube. I know the thicker wall of the tube was intentional so there is more material to tap.

We work with tube most of the time, are set up to work with it in our metal shop, and found it easier to source than the channel. We also found it a fairly easy process to build the frames this way and are pleased with how true the frame is with very little adjustment. The tube is 2"x3" 1/4" wall. The thickness let us drill and tap it no problem. We do like having the mass of the base, while it is primarily a torch we will the capable to mount a pindle or router so we wanted the mass. We matched the rest of the tube because themachine is giong to move around from storage in one part of the shop, to use in another. The gantry tubes are 2"x4" 3/16" wall. We wanted the mass of the gantry for the same reason. the 3/16" is still tappable with out a backing strip. Does mean we went with geared steppers for x and y though, x to handle tha mass of the gantry, y to match x. The 2 z steppers are direct drive.

in our business we spend a great deal of time thinking outside the box, to the point that we usually just forget there is one entirely.

nice pictures ben, thanks

What box? :confused:
Well for what it's worth, I like it... what originally caught my attention was the build area,
Winston-Salem
I have family in the Roanoke area...
I would be interested in seeing pics of the dual Z you have... I can see it in my minds eye but its still a little fuzzy... :o
thanks for the in depth reply :)

It's pretty hard in these pictures to see what's really going on in the z-slide but maybe this helps a little. Next time I'm over there I'll get some better shots.