DIY CNC PLASMA TABLE + NEXT BUILD preview

in this episode of design and built Laurie and I from LCS will be building our very own waterbed for our plasma table for those of you who have been following my journey you'll know that I've used a lot of Cad and laser cutting for my own build and this plasma cutter really is a game changer to take our fabrication to the next level one of the reasons why we use a lot of plasma and Laser is because it's more accurate more repeatable and there's no way you can cut such intricate geometry with an angle grinder Lori and I from LCS purchased a blue curve spark a number of months ago which is basically a standalone Gantry and a controller and we've decided to build a waterbed for it and that's for a number of reasons which we'll be covering later in the video this is going to be a great video for anyone interested in CAD plasma cutting or laser cutting so sit back relax and enjoy the video we are setting up a plasma tape we've had a blue carve plasma table for six months but it hasn't had there she is making the background sitting on the top shelf waiting right up there waiting for Taylor today waiting for a day like today so we haven't had time we've just been working on our own projects and other projects um and haven't had time to set it up but today we're building a bed frame for it uh so we've just finished smoothing out this table it's the flatter surface we have in the workshop and we're going to build everything based off this so watch the time lapse we'll do our best to explain it as we go just cutting the sheet down to size this is a six mil base plate using a plasma cutter for it [Music] using the LCS plasma template available at lcs4x4.com [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] we're just assembling the legs upside down and then we'll do a bit of a weld off and then we can flip it back around so this is really heavy duty steel don't know the thickness what's the thickness Lorry of this stuff five mil six mil plate only two mil here upright to five yeah just because we had it really thick and heavy duty stuff [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] laws give us a status update weld off the inside and then try and mount the plugs on top so do you want to quickly run everyone through the design we've just sort of braced the out of the bottom so this plate doesn't warp even though it is six mils thick we are putting a lot of heat into it and then we've got shelving so I want to flip it upside down we'll be able to put some stuff on these shelves yeah cool and we've capped uh obviously all these ends off as well all the dags off uh ready you know it's almost ready for paint once we flip back over and do do a full weld off so you can see the machine on the table now lines up perfectly on the inside which means we built it correctly and got all the dimensioning right so these are just in it to brace until we fully weld everything on in here any darling Legends component from LCS 4x4 what do you want me to start and he's got the best job of this whole table which is seam welding everything here so it's watertight come on Connor show us show us your dimes mate all right let's go mate okay so we got these slats laser cut with these teeth here and it's all fairly flat which is fantastic news and we're just gonna flat Richard it's very it's actually it is it's completely flat isn't it lost and it's spectacular uh so I just put a piece of sheet on here double check it and then uh yeah keep on trucking update time I cut it up these which are splash guards and we got them lasered a full three meter length and then CNC folded which is pretty impressive so these are splash guards which protect the aluminum Extrusion where the machine actually runs up so you can see there so the machine will be running up and down there and that's why we've got these and then we've got the N ones as well so again all CAD laser CNC folded and we're about to drill and tap these into the the main water bed and then uh yeah there's a few other little jobs we've got to do and then we're good to paint it first update we have drilled and tapped all the splash guards in as you can see everything's sitting nicely alrighty so we're stripping everything off the table and just cleaning up the corners getting it ready for paint Shannon's going to paint it up for us tomorrow look at this Lars on the master Fab so smooth foreign [Music] let's fast forward a few months and this is our very own completed plasma table so the bed is three thousand by 1200 wide which means you can get a full sheet of Steel on there which is really important to us and we did a capping weld all around the inside to make it watertight and then we also put some seam sealer around the inside as well just to be doubly assure so when we're not losing any fluid we've got the teeth or knife edge cut from six mil steel and now the beauty of having your own plasma table means that we'll be able to actually cut our own teeth from now on so we got the first set done on a laser but we'll be cutting our own teeth going forward which make it a lot more economical for us Laurie and I designed all these shrouds in CAD you don't have to have them but it really does stop spray from the water going everywhere as well as dross spraying outside the the waterbed so they are nice to have these are laser cut and CNC folded pieces three thousand mil in length on the long side and they really do take the look of the table to the next level these these pieces also protect the Gantry rails and make sure they don't get clogged up as the machines moving backwards and forwards these shrouds are also a safety feature for when you're unloading and loading on sheets just to make sure that you don't damage the machine rails this table is using the blue carved spark CNC unit the blue curve spark controller and an SWS plasma cutter and they work beautifully together and the proof is in the pudding with the test Cuts one of the really cool features of the blue carb spark is it has automated height control which uses voltage feedback to automatically adjust the height of the tip so you can cut over things like corrugated roof sheet and we've tested this out on Checker plate and it worked really well another point of the variable height control is that it can adjust when a sheet buckles which does happen although less so because we built a waterbed which is one of the reasons why we built a waterbed so as as the sheet buckles or bows then it can adjust the height and we still get a really clean cut you don't have to build one of these with the waterbed but there are some significant advantages of using a waterbed which is why we've done it number one improve cut quality the waterbed helps to cool a metal being cut reducing heat affected zones and warping resulting in improved cutting quality and accuracy number two increased lifespan of the plasma torch the waterbed helps to dissipate the heat away from the plasma torch which can increase its lifespan number three which is a major one for us in enhanced safety a waterbed can reduce the risk of fire or explosion by cooling hot metal as well as reducing the exposure to harmful chemicals and fumes like mill scale which is what you'd find on a typical steel sheet number four improve cutting speed the waterbed can increase cutting speed by reducing the amount of heat generated during The Cutting process let's show you how this plasma table works with some test pieces and then we'll get into future modifications and plans for the table so you can see here Lori's actually been busy on Cad and I've given him a few lessons and he's designed up these chassis plates and we're raising the back of them so we can get some more up travel so it's going to be a pretty pretty cool chassis so this is one of the first things that we're cutting with our plasma table so what you do export as a dxf and then we go over to the my plasma CNC software and you can see we're nesting them up here we're just checking all the settings are right and nesting in such a way to avoid material wastage and messing around with our lead-in lead outs before we get cutting foreign let's use the chassis plates as an example to show how much time you can actually save so for a set of four chassis plates I'd estimate they'd take about two hours to cut by hand with a grinder and approximately a thousand cutting discs every plate would be slightly different also to cut these with the machine takes five and a half minutes of plate with about an hour of CAD to get it all right so we save a total of six and a half hours in this particular example now the beauty of this is we have the cad design for next time and the more plates we cut the more time we save if we zoom in on this Laurie this is four mil this is no cleaning and it almost looks like it's come out of a laser which is just Sensational so as far as the machine quality goes we are so stoked and it just means we can do these bigger projects uh really really quickly okay those chassis plates we're working on are going on this chassis For an upcoming project on the design and build Channel and we're gonna get to that six months a year who knows watch this space but you can see there without giving too much away that's a chassis plate that we cut all right Lori we've been using this table for a couple of months now and we've really given it a good test out but there are still a few little bits to do one of those is just moving the plasma cutter and the controller underneath the table just to make it look more clean another one is having the keyboard the opposite direction to the the plasma makes it quite hard to orientate when you're driving the machine around with the keys but there's another option for that isn't it you can plug a PlayStation remote and control the machine which will make a lot easier for locating your Cuts it's it is it's challenging when you've got your back to the machine you're going backwards and forwards we've loaded a few a few full-size sheets onto the bed now and it's been quite challenging I think we'll we'll build a boom maybe something a way that we can lift sheets swing them over and lower the sheets down safely that would make it a whole lot a whole lot more user friendly yeah perfect so a lot of the time we're really cutting three four five and six mil steel as well as aluminum as well and the sheets you can imagine if you were getting a 3000 by 1200 sheet of Steel in that thickness that they are quite heavy so I guess um yeah absolutely the the Boom is the future so you might be wondering what is next for this table what are we actually using it it for and I guess Laurie would you like to climb in well firstly that the jobs that used to take us hours hours on end it's now turning jobs it took yeah many hours into into minutes it's uh it's changing the way that we really we think and the way we design our the parts we make we've got a few huge projects lined up this year and you can imagine when you build a car there's all those little brackets and we no longer have to cut them with an angle grinder where you get to use a plasma table so I'm absolutely stoked because it means less grinding more CAD for me and I think it's a much more time efficient process so yeah watch this space we've got a big year ahead yeah exciting if you'd like to see more of us using this machine and the upcoming project we've just teased don't forget to hit like And subscribe and turn those notifications on that's all for this video everyone I hope you enjoyed it and learned about some of the benefits of a waterbed plasma cutter

Channel: Designed and Built

Views: 47,641

Keywords: landcruiser, FJ45, FJ40, 80series, FJ4580, 40 series cab 80 series chassis, HJ45, 40series, buildlog, barratheworld, 80 series landcruiser, 40 series landcruiser, 40 series cab on 80 series chassis, 45/80, 80/45, barra, barra turbo, barra landcruiser, barra cruiser, zf 6 speed, adaptor, mckinnon's cruisers, 80 series transfer case, fgxr6t, xr6 turbo, fg xr6 turbo in landcruiser, fg xr6 turbo, roadkill, mightycarmods, mcm, westen champlin, adam lz, swindelhurst, swindlehurst, fj49

Id: 8U_byOvBxvA

Length: 14min 57sec (897 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023