New Horizons

Well, I got word today that I've been displaced.  The way it works, you get 90 days to return to work.  If you file the proper paper work every month, you can extend that to 180 days.  That was Sunday.  They looked all over the company to see if anyone needed a wheezing geezer, and no body did.  Working the long term disability stuff now.  I sure am thankful I have that coverage through the company!  

So....  

My welder buddy bought this plasma table back in March.  It sat for months while we had other work going.  I was finishing up a project that just kept getting interrupted.  He was busy, too.  After I finished my little project, and cleared out the area around this thing, I started working on it in earnest.  Figured out that in shipping the gantry moved and stripped a belt.  Found those  ordered  a couple and fixed it quick.  The other axis was jumping and skipping and I thought it probably needed one as well.  So now I have spare for both.  The pc was a lash up.  It looked like a tornado hit a spare parts bin and out came a computer.  No case, just a kloodge of wiring and usb ports..... usb ports were hanging every where.  I left it running back in December, , and it started updating Windows.... And trashed the master boot record.  I could get it to boot on a spare pc at home, but never got the thing to work on the table.  I replaced it with a reconditioned one that will handle the next software upgrade, and it's smooth as silk. Turns out the old pc was glitching when it was moving the gantry and torch unit.  Too much for the old thing to do smoothly.  Got the software licensing moved over to the new owner and found out the maker of the table.  

Not this one, but similar.  Two things not shown are the torch unit and the pc.

A plasma table is really just a computer numerically controlled machine / table.  It has three axis movement.  You can put any kind of cutter on it you want:  plasma torch, oxy-gas torch, water jet, laser, router, engraver, sharpie marker, chalk, whatever.  This one is about 20 years old and has a big plasma torch on it.  I have a tiny 3D printer at home.  But it is exactly the same concept.  My 3D printer is a little thing, the welder's table has a workspace of 60 x 120 inches and can burn thicknesses up to 1.5 inches of steel plate.  Not hobby sized, it's a machine tool.

So.....

What can it do?  It can cut almost anything you can draw in two dimensions.

This gif shows one with a water filled table.  They muffle enhance the sound and keep the fumes down.  My bud's table has a downdraft fan.  It'll pull the vapors down and blow them out of the building.  I still need to vent that outside.  Right now, I just wear a welder's filter mask.

The software is very good.  It monitors the plasma machine and adjusts the torch height to keep it cutting.  It has a sensor to set the work height so you don't have to manually do that.  And it has a wonderful lookup table that automatically adjusts the speed based on material thickness and type.  I am really looking into getting a CO2 laser for it.  As well as an engraver.  It is the biggest table in the county that I know of.  How fortunate that I know how this works and he needs someone to work it.

 I have a lot to learn.  There are some finer points on running one of these that I don't know. But computer aided drafting and industrial electronics are things I've dabbled in for years.  It plays to all my interests and work history.  Too cool.