CNC Plasma Indexing - How to cut pieces larger than your table

hey guys Steve here the traffic bro mechanics today we're going to talk about CNC plasma cutting more specifically indexing parts that are larger than your table [Music] so about a year ago I bought a CNC plasma to make some signs for my building the unit that I went with was the crossfire from linear systems I'll show you that in a second but the table working with is about 22 by 24 and I wanted to make signs that were you know 4 by 8 3 by 8 so I needed to be able to index them and cut them in stages and when I was looking for information on how to do that I had a hard time finding anything online whatever is YouTube or from the manufacturers of the CAD software or the plasma machines there wasn't a lot of information on how to index I found a little bit on router ring but the milling process in my CAD program which I'm using fusion 360 lists was different for milling than it was for plasma so I couldn't use that either so I thought well now that I figured it out and I've done it I'll make a video and share with you guys so I can help you guys out if you are wanting to do that so let's jump in one thing I would like to say is I'm not gonna be covering much about like how to set up a design in a CAD program like fusion or or all the little details I'm just gonna assume that you have a CNC plasma and you cut some stuff on it and are now maybe wanting to cut something bigger but don't know how but you've already got the basics kind of figured out there's a lot of videos to help and I'll show you that in a second too if you just need to get some help on on design alright so first of all all right here is the Dino that I'm using it's the crossfire as I said from language systems it's about $1,500 u.s. and I equipped it with water table for another hundred and elapsed laptop stand I wish they threw in at the time it's a great unit they also since have come out with the excel which has a 25 by 33 working area and then recently they've just come out with a new one and it is the crossfire Pro I want in this unit it's a four by three foot table and it also has the z-axis up and down which the previous versions didn't have but it's 2,500 bucks I'm pretty happy with what I have now that I'm gonna index so yeah anyway like I said if you don't know how to work in CAD cam here is some great along there cysts on their site language systems if you go into their support user guides and you look into it they have step-by-step tutorials on how to set up design all the different things you need to do in CAD cam processing they even show you the export use Mach 3 which so that I'm using all that great stuff so if you need to know that go to the website check it out if you need a plasma cutter or I'm sorry a plasma table or cutter I highly recommend them I know there's a few different ones out there but this one this one's really good so that's that and now I'm just gonna tell you kind of things that you need when you are gonna do indexing so let's go and take a look at what you need index first to the table and determine the size of the table so like I said this one cuts 22 inches to 24 inches the other direction and your x and y so when I'm indexing I need to have a straight line that's consistent all the time so I have this template here I just took it is three and a half into the flats feel like notched out where my workpiece on the same line all the time so when I set my torch to the home position on each cut that I might be making it's always gonna end up the same spot in regards to the piece of work that you're kind of took the sign always is always gonna be the same so you don't have to guess about where you're lining up that sheet this only has the two axes control doesn't have that the Y or the Z action sorry so it's manual problem oh these are the plasma torch that you're gonna be using I'm using mine with Hobart air force forty it seems to be working well if you have a plasma that's this size or smaller than the piece that you're cutting obviously what why you're gonna be indexing then you need a platform to set your material or because if you have work so what I've done is I've built this table really rough I just needed something to work right away I just used to buy before material with being nailed it together but I basically built this this table that my my CNC machine can slide into and I can put my work on it and slide it across from left to right so that there's nothing hanging off and my my workpiece always stated flat not something you're gonna need because you're gonna be sliding your your sheet across from one side to the other as you index one piece to the next you're gonna want to keep that straight and flat and this is just a quick way I did mine eventually I've probably build one out of steel so it's a little more sturdy maybe with some some folding part of so it can be put away nicely without it just taking up space in the shop one of the thing I wanna mention to those CNC machine systems if you're cutting CNC plasma just keeps you fumes down also adds a little bit of water to the piece you're cutting which keeps a little bit cooler which keeps things from warping which we never think the material is okay so now that we know what we need as far as materials and an equipment also obviously I need a CAD CAM software so I'm using fusion 360 like I said so first thing that you want to do is create your design this is a sign that I designed for my shop Raptor pro mechanics rpm there it is okay that sign is about three feet tall by eight feet wide okay so the first step is to design your sign I've got designs now the next thing you want to do is index it and so you go and what I did is I split it up into the sections that my table can cut my table can cut 20 well I set it up for 21 by 24 inches and so that's what I've made here is blocks that are 21 inches wide by 24 inches for the X travel and then basically from there you say that as your index and then you saved how everybody indexes you have so this one's gonna have one two three four five six seven eight nine ten different indexes ten different cuts so I'm gonna save those in ten different files I'm gonna have a separate file for each piece that I'm going to cut it's the only way I can figure out how do it so basically once I've got this piece done then I erase everything else that I'm not gonna be using so just the first one and I save it as index one then I come back to my main index my master index and I do the same thing but I do it with index two so I erased all the rest of this stuff and just save the one on the two and it looks like this when I'm done so that's index one and that's what it's gonna cut out now as you can see there's a little bit extra here down here there's a little tab that I cut it's a two inch cut and up here there's a little - actually - 1 inch cut there's a one inch cut and those are my indexing marks so when I'm programming my cut and I cut profile I set this corner right here as my as my home spot that's the that's the zero spot when I when I set up my plasma and I'm ready to cut it that's my home spot that's zero and it's gonna return to that spot that's where it's gonna be it's gonna be run in the corner of this sign and the reason I cut these out is if they're not in the they're they're not going to be in the sign that part is outside of the sign so obviously I have to have my material hanging over that that much I gotta have extra material if you don't have your cut in the whole sign out you're using a full four by eight sheet you can put this down into the material and just weld it up when you're done I mean it could work I've done it it's just a little not as neat so if you do make your sign just a little bit smaller than your workpiece that's the ideal so basically what's gonna happen here is I'm gonna cut this out it's gonna look going this will do a little simulation on it so it's gonna run this this cut and when I've done this cut I'm gonna have these two notches this notch is gonna be used when I flip over to do my other side I'll explain that later the first piece is gonna be this guy here what I've done cutting this is now my new alignment tab where where X was won't show up anyway every one where x and y is okay so what I'm gonna do now now that I've cut this piece I'm gonna bring this whole sheet over and slide it over until this alignment notch is right where this torch zero point is and I'm gonna bring this torch to the zero point and then I'm gonna bring it just a little bit further down the x-axis to to where that line is sticking up so now my next piece which is gonna look like this okay there my index isn't showing on here but the index that I made is right there and that's my zero spot so I move my torch there and I do it just a little a little test fire with a torch and I want to make sure that that torch fires exactly in that cut where I made the cut and not in that slot and I can adjust it if it's not it's not a big deal I just move it over I just it till it's exactly in the middle of that cut then I know that I'm completely lined up and that when I started this next cut its gonna whop it's gonna start right from where I left off here then it's going to start right there and we can fire it right here boom makes the cut same thing happens after that evil over the next piece the only thing this gets a little bit different now is when you go to do your backside obviously you can't turn it around you don't know 180 you got to flip it upside down so on my backside one of those I actually turned the x-axis or the y-axis I think it was on its side so now you see here it's actually upside down if you've flipped this 180 that would be facing the other direction that would be right side up now I look at the sign from the backside upside down because when I take my piece I need it to line up in the same manner so I flip it 180 on on the table and now I'm able to see that I can bring my I brought my zero point I move my zero point to that little notch I was telling you about earlier right here right there that notch now is is the halfway point so when I flip my sheet over I hone my zero the same zero as I had before on the x-axis but on the y-axis I move it so that it lines up exactly to where that notch is that would be right here now we I know I guess I'm lined up on this line because I've already made that cut and I lined up on this line because I made that cut and I test-fire the torch to make sure it's gonna fire in that spot once I have it lined up I return to zero and I can go ahead and fire that cut and it's gonna cut it exactly where it needs to be if you have it out a little bit it will have a little bit of an arch difference but usually you can fix that but it isn't too hard really to get it to line up I know a lot of guys in the in the router they were actually programming dowels into their workpiece and then running it over and sticking a dowel in a preset slot I think that could work but I haven't really figured out how I would do that yet so yeah anyway so once you do that obviously then you go into your your g code and you process your g code which i've already done I've actually to cut the sign so and then you can load it into your mach3 which is what I use to to cut with my equipment yeah so it's pretty it's pretty straightforward once you getting the hang of it it took a while to basically get this index figured out as to where where I should be and how I should be cutting and where I should make my alignment tabs and how that was all gonna work but once you play with it for a little while you can figure it out and it's not too bad so yeah so once you fire your first cut and then you're ready to move it over you just want to make sure you keep your sheet lined up with that that that flat plate that I talked about earlier so that your your x-axis depth always stays the same when you slide it back over it's touching that piece and you know that you're lined up that way that all you have to do is line up your y-axis so that it's bang on for your next cut because for the first five cuts your x-axis doesn't change it's staying the same only your y-axis is moving over and then when you flip it around that's when you have those other alignment tabs so yeah as you can see it's this is a different sign that I cut for another business I didn't have any video cutting an RPM sign unfortunately but it's the same same thing makes the cut and then it we move on to the next cut after it pieces up that piece and this is how the sign is turning out I've just kind of painted it and so it's looking pretty good but yeah if you have any questions uh you know any other questions about something I didn't cover maybe or or something else you want to know I can try and let you know the best I can but that's just how I did it and it's worked for me the sign turned out okay I think and hopefully it'll work for you so if you like this video go ahead and give us a like and consider subscribing we don't have a lot of videos yet but we are a new channel and we're gonna be making lots more videos like this so check us out and we'll see you around Thanks

Channel: Raptor Pro Mechanics

Views: 563

Keywords: CNC, Plasma, DIY

Id: OJ2IyMK0wW8

Length: 18min 24sec (1104 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 09 2020