Titivating A CNC Plasma Table

The Craftmans Shop > New from Old

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awemawson:
All rather frustrating, as I'd thought that as soon as that relay arrives and is fitted, I can wack a 12" hole through the welding shop wall, and start using the table. In fact to speed up the process I ordered an exhaust cowl for the outside wall rather than bend one from Zintec, but now it looks like I have a bit more to do before that can happen.

So today the relay and cowl arrived, but I've still not worked out how I'm going to mount better covers. Having to remove the end plates of the gantry may well help, as I can possibly bend something up to fit round the profile of the end plates.

... ah well, onwards and upwards, at least I've fitted the E-STOP relay and wired it all up and it tests out OK.

Incidentally the OMRON relay that I thought I'd ordered turns out to be an ONROM relay - sneaky cunning naming intended to confuse I'm sure, OMRON are a well respected brand - never heard of ONROM - but it works OK

awemawson:
OK time to sort out the gantry issues - I started the day intending to draw up the shape of the end plate in cad to aid me in making an all embracing cover but it got so complicated missing all the bits that needed missing, and covering the bits that needed covering I changed track. I decided to make just belt covers, as the original owner had done, but this time with 'joined up corners' and not mounted at that odd jaunty angle.

The covers for all three axis are identical apart from the brackets, so I've bent up three boxes, and I will sweat brackets on to match the existing holes in the gantry.

To get reasonably sharp bends in the 1.2 mm Zintec sheet that I'm using, having laid it out and notched the corners I ran a 1 mm cutting disk lightly down the fold lines before bending in my Edwards Box and Pan folder. Then I soldered the corners using lead free solder, as it takes to the zinc coating nicely, and is significantly harder than plumbers lead containing solder.

The boxes came out pretty well and will get an obligatory coat of blue paint before being fitted.

Next job is to remove the end frames of the gantry and drill holes for the HiWin sliders in the right place - hole spacing on the end plates is 45 mm whereas the sliders are 40 mm - not sure how that happened, as I said before perhaps a different rail system has been used previously :scratch:

I intend to remove the ends one at a time, replacing the one I've worked on before starting the next to stop the gantry getting out of control. To this end I've made up a wooden packing piece and wedge to secure the cross beam during the operation.

End plates come off tomorrow hopefully.

hermetic:
at last! someone has found something that lead free solder is actually good for!, Thanks Andrew, I will remember that one. Can't wait for the demo video, she's nearly there!

awemawson:
You and me both Phil, this should have been done and dusted by now.

I found the usefulness of lead free solder with Zintec when I was making boxes and panels for the Traub lathe - funny how these things accumulate as 'handy fixes'

Pete W.:
Hi there, Andrew,

It's looking good!

Regarding the lead-free solder - did you use a gas torch or a smouldering iron? And what flux did you use?

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