Finishing My DIY CNC Plasma Cutter

how's it going we're finally finishing the plasma cutter today yay now you may remember in the last video we ran into a bit of a problem [Music] wow the problems didn't stop there and I in my hubris decided to stop filming for a lot of those problems so let's let editing me kinda string together the video to get you all caught up to speed on where we're at are you kidding me not quite sure why that dummy thought that I would do any better at stringing the story together than him but guess I got no choice now let's start where we left off in the last video I remember it like it was approximately a month ago [Applause] [Music] uh-oh bit of a problem guys this bar was supposed to have a counterweight on it which was gonna run on the same linear bearings that everything else is running on but that ain't gonna work we gotta figure something else out all right here's my solution now I do not have a super long linear rail but I do have a lot of these short ones and I think if I line them up just right I can get the linear bearing to go from one to the other no problem so I'm just gonna daisy chain all the leftover linear rails I have laying around not a great solution but it is a solution spoiler alert it is not a solution bear with me here so that's that time to go install this on the frame tada give us both directions I think the next thing that I gotta work on getting the belts installed let's do that to install the belt I welded a piece at either end of each axis one of them is a fixed piece that the belt just gets anchored to the other end is a piece with a bolt that can be used for adjustment the way the motor runs on the belt is like this there are two idlers placed in front of the motor and a little pinion on the motor and I can run back and forth across the belt by spinning the pinion now the more astute amongst you may have noticed that opinion does not match that belt well welcome to problem one out of five thousand but this guy doesn't know that's a problem yet well it doesn't really seem to have any problem climbing up the hill which even that surprising to me there is one little problem uh-huh it just Falls when it's off so much to my dismay I think we're gonna have to make a counterweight and make a counterweight I did the first counterweight that I messed with was just a large chunk of Steel that I mounted to the linear rails those were hooked to a cable that went up and over two pulleys that were welded in place and worked terribly remember those bumps in the linear rail that I was saying oh it'll be no problem about actually I edited that part out here you go it's smooth enough I don't think the stepper will even notice that little bump the stepper noticed but that's fixable more importantly it was completely in the way of the cable chain so I wanted a lower impact idea my next plan was to use a spring-loaded pulley and I actually tried two of these one kind of like a chainsaw pull string another one kind of like a garage door opener both of these sucked they did not have the force required to get the job done so knowing that the only problem that we have is that it falls when power stops being applied I thought let's just put a break on it so I used this teeny weeny little cutie air cylinder and made a break and installed it onto the Gantry and hooked it up so when there's no power to the steppers the Piston actuates engaging the brake and stopping the Gantry it happened far too slow no matter which signal I put it on even on the enable pin of the separ it was far too slow the Gantry would fall and then it would activate which would cause it to go out of phase and whatever it didn't work I think that just about brings you up to speed not to where I am now but to where the guy with the John green shirt was at the beginning of the video so I'll let him take right overall well I guess that's as far as he could take you so here I am to get you caught the rest of the way up let's go look at the machine ah a little bit of a mess huh much better let me show you all the stuff I didn't film let's start with the most glaring and obvious change I swapped out the timing belt for a timing chain this is a number four timing chain with a cute little pinion you may have noticed that my timing belt and timing pulley didn't match the timing pulleys I stole off of my old plasma cutter and those were some strange Imperial gt2-esque but not GT2 timing belts that I had on there and I couldn't find that type of belt again so I used regular GT2 belts and those were warping and stretching and just not up to the task so I needed something something tough hence the chain to mount the chain I just drilled a hole right in between the original mounts for the belt and stuck a bolt right through it easy peas don't look at this tensioner over on this linear rail one here and one down here at the bottom these are the the limit switches for the y-axis I like using these little Appliance switches rather than micro switches because they're a little bit more Stout they're accurate enough for my needs and they have a built-in adjustability with these two nuts the reason that I have two switches is so that the machine can square itself when it's home if we set each switch a little in and out we'll effectively get to choose at what angle the machine is home if that makes sense I've got a ride ahead and installed the torch to the floating head this is just a cheapy off of Amazon but it's pretty great and to make these mounts I just cut them out of a solid block of aluminum drill the proper holes cut the tensioning thing and pretty obvious I actually had to go through and stiffen These Bars up I just did that with some self-tappers and little pieces of aluminum I've installed the cable chain for the y-axis and the x-axis I plum air into the shed and put it through an air dryer slash regulator this all runs on a half inch line which is pretty fancy schmanz but it's all pretty box standard here these are my solenoids for our little failed brake system I just haven't cleaned them up yet don't judge me here I went lazy style for the electronics this is the PC that runs Linux CNC this is all the CNC Electronics in here and I just got the plasma cutter dangling up top here and it honestly that works perfectly I can retell the switches and it's out of the way so now then let's put this counterweight thing to bed once and for all so here we are eight minutes into the video and I think that you're all caught up to where I am in real life so we're working together from here on out guys I promise I'm kidding I'm kidding so the problem that we have is the same problem that we started with and the solution that we're going with is the solution that we started with no more of these Italy freaking spring-loaded mechanisms we're doing a good old counterweight so I guess the first thing we need to do is figure out how much this Behemoth weighs I guess this thing's got a 80 pound weight limit but if our Gantry weighs 80 pounds we got more problems than just not being able to weigh it who the hell has 80 pounds of luggage well yep you gotta take my bag of concrete on the plane let's go when I pull up we're reading around 12. yes this is the best spot that I have to work right now um my life's in a bit of a state of disarray with the plasma cutter and moving the laser out here and everything so uh the floor is the best workbench I got I don't know how low this thing can weigh but I don't think that this tube is zero pounds so we may have a problem with this that's filled up all the way and it still says zero uh uh so I've gone right ahead and uh welded a little bar in there so I can use the luggage scale and it looks like we're at about five pounds on this thing so we just need something slightly more dense than sand that'll do I always try to Relish in the moment when my uh hoarding helps me feels good [Applause] actually no I'm not gonna do that I just watched a couple videos and uh that looks like a nasty way to spend the next three hours so I'm just gonna use this thing to make sure that our counterweight isn't flopping all over the place we're gonna stick it on a line of your rail yes the only part of my CNC machine that I'm using linear rails on is a counterweight shut up I know that's dumb first things first we gotta figure out a way to mount this foreign we need to figure out a way to mount this onto this don't tell anyone about this I think that was a terrible idea I'll tell you one thing it smells like a terrible idea yes I'm just as surprised as but it slides just fine that's one point for the lazys today won't be needing this let's install this on the machine to link the two together we need a pulley two pulleys actually excuse all the background noise the neighbors seem to be having a little party how are you to them it's it's like they think it's a holiday weekend or something don't they know there's no such thing as a weekend when you make YouTube videos I've drilled a little hole right here now we can go ahead and loop a cable through and get that thing crimped using the wrong tool of course because who the hell owns cable crimpers you can take our length of cable and run it through the pulleys wipe cell lift our counterweight up to the top and then look for a spot to mount this to realize there isn't one put it back down all right then we painstakingly try to line this up in the correct place because I only get one shot at this and I am historically not very good at only having one shot well I think that that might be the spot right there beautiful ah you didn't see any of that happen well um I guess you did see it happen from the perspective of a pulley anyway counterweight is installed we can clean up a little bit and give this guy a test and this is the time that it will work did you hear me this is the time that you're gonna work sorry um be right back without even hooking anything up yeah here's a little something something it holds itself up I think we got this thing sorted it works oh you can hear the hesitancy in my voice it sort of works so as you definitely can't tell right now here it goes uh drawing a tree of life a huge one at that it looks all fine and dandy right I could probably get away with this but the truth is the tip here wobbles not a lot but I can feel it now how do I fix this I don't know I'm kind of stumped here the problem is coming one from this not very rigid setup here so maybe a tube going across there will stiffen it up a little bit but more importantly the problem is from these linear rails I used if I had any sense I would have just bought long linear rails instead of trying to make my own because while they do work in that I get linear motion they're not as smooth as a machine made linear rail so if I want machine accuracy well these aren't quite gonna cut it either way I think I'm gonna move right on ahead with the machine get it done get it cutting but yeah a little bummed out anyway moving right along so oh terrible lighting so what's next on the list here thing one slats I'm not gonna put those on till later though Thing Two warpage on bigger cuts the sheet is gonna want to warp out and probably fall out of alignment so we need to do something to deal with that and at the same time we'll deal with some ventilation issues this is how we're gonna solve warping ventilation and do our first test as you can see here I've got these little keyholes spread out along the machine and I went ahead and traced the existing uh obstacles we have to dodge just by jogging the machine which is what these yellow lines are so it looks like we're pretty good and these are made to follow the slats so you know it'll be a miracle if all this lines up but in theory it should now the machine won't actually reach all the way down to the bed where we need to cut so oh I went right ahead and just knocked this way down in the clamp to be able to touch this at the bottom of travel nothing ready for that for our first cut on this thing that was kind of a doozy now the cut quality really isn't great on these holes but it was only held on by one strap and flopping around six inches out so that was to be expected buy these for one can be used as ventilation holes if that's what I end up doing this whole thing will become like a downdraft table but for two I can take this Carriage bolt and stick it down in there so in my cam I can import a file that has holes that correspond with each of these little uh data leaves and I can put these holes in parts of the design that I can save to cut out last if that makes any sense now that is a little more prep than a regular plasma cutter but I am fitting a full-size plasma cutter in a shed so you know that that's the trade-off that I don't really in mind and when I'm cutting smaller shapes I found that it doesn't really bow all that much so I can probably get away with it without clamping anyway next thing on the docket flat I don't know if you remember these things from the last video but those are what will hold the slats the slats will be made from pieces at two inch flat bar you just go into one little Notch through one notch up in the middle and then back a notch on the top [Music] so would you take a look at those slats it looks like a real life plasma cutter now and I'm pretty pleased that these holes actually lined up where I wanted them to I think it's safe to say on any cut I will have access to enough of these holes to clamp something well let's put this thing to work so as of right now I kind of just have to perch the material down on the floor which is obviously not ideal because all of this is space that we can't use so we got to make some little uh material holsters if you will so I believe in you little guy so I blew the breaker and we don't even have this thing at full power yet so yeah that's gonna need to be upgraded [Applause] [Music] [Applause] peace that did cut out like this one look at that that's nice one very little slag and two it didn't fall out now I know that's not gonna be the case with every piece but I was worried about that it looks like I could be a little less worried so that's cool anyways these pieces will go on each of the pieces of one inch like so it's lined up so that the lowest point is just below this so we can cut sheets in half if we have to and that little tooth just kind of sticks out just a little bit enough to hold a piece of metal yeah let's get those welded on now the sheets of metal get precariously balanced right there much better right maybe a little sketch I think it's better [Music] I'm back what you got something to say cheese camera shy you have no idea how many times I said bonjour bonjour bonjour uncultured American swine anyway this is about the end of the footage and we really don't have a big payoff so it's payoff time what's a large format plasma cutter without a large format plasma cut so let's put this machine to the test I just want a design that's intricate and large and obviously that brings me to Etsy and I stumbled upon this guy that is freaking nice I think I'm gonna cut this out and yes I will pay for it I think I can afford that am I officially a yuppie now so here we are in cheat cam which is the cam software that I use to generate G-Code for my plasma cutter I've imported our uh piece of art into there now before generating any cut paths I'm going to import this file and this is the exact location of all of our little clampy holes so we just gotta choose a few strategic spots to clamp this sheet down we want to be sure that any of these that we choose are going to be in a negative space portion of the cut we're going to go ahead and plasma cut we'll do an inside offset of our cut layer blam so we got these four clamp holes well ain't nothing to it but do it oh and I I changed out that breaker sorry I had a licensed electrician change out that breaker just gotta send it oh my God I'm nervous what no no no no no no I I've messed up the nest thing but we're all fixed now let's go and now we take our guy stick it on in there and then tighten up a wing nut on there I've gone right ahead and done the rest of these holes just using regular nuts because honestly they protrude much less than the Wingnut I've also cut the all the bolts down to the correct size and I'm not going to pretend like that was easy but I'm sure it's something that I'll get the feel for with time anyway nothing else to do but to let her rip to breathe but that's all right [Music] [Music] oh my God guys I'm majorly screwed up as you can see everything was coming along just swimmingly until I when I wasn't filming decided to come stop the program here because I wanted shots of the straight lines getting cut obviously well well I stopped the program and restarted it and when it pierced I noticed it delayed a little bit afterwards not sure what that was a glitch of some sort but this is lower than it's supposed to be as you can see it ran into the bolt head and I didn't really notice it as a problem I thought I just screwed up my position in here until it went right off the seat so um yeah that sucks failure is just an opportunity to learn what did I learn on bigger sheets I need to have more clamp spots plus I need my safe height to be pulled up more so um I guess it's take two the problem though is I don't have another full team I guess I just gotta figure out what pattern to put on here [Music] why can't you just let me eat my way [Music] kid the camera went to sleep just like I want to do it's well past my bedtime we'll go over this in the morning my neighbors well and truly hate me now well it appears we have a good from far but far from good situation here I just took these right off the machine these are not cleaned up at all and they look all right but I know I can do better some of these cuts are a little wobbly and the start point is visible on a couple of them which the start point is just tuning the wobbliness a lot of it seems to be in the slag on the back which will be cleaned up if I were to grind these down but in a perfect world I just want to take them right off the machine do very minimal post-processing so it appears that we're not out of the woods yet out of the woods no out of time for this video oh hell yeah oh no a continuity error I'm wearing a different shirt so yes the machine is working pretty good and I would say that it works just as good as my old plasma cutter but I want it better so the problems that I think I have are one the linear rails it doesn't cost all that much extra to just use normal linear rails two the counterweight needs to be stiffened up that's no problem just had a tube there blam three I got a comment from one of you guys regarding the chain and that seems worth looking into and honestly with the counterweight system working GT2 timing belt should be okay to run this machine so anyway as promised in the last video I do have a set of plans as well as all the svgs for this project available on my website and the plans have all of these changes incorporated into them now since only like ninety percent of this plan has been tested I wanted to do like a sliding scale it's more of a like help me out if you want kind of thing but Squarespace doesn't let you do that so they're five bucks that's reasonable enough and if you support me on patreon they're free I'll try and post them on there if I'm unable to do that then just message me on patreon and I'll send them to you thank you now my website as of right now is cranktown.city cranktowncity.com was actually made by one of you guys they basically got the domain so that uh somebody wouldn't take it for nefarious purposes so you know who you are thank you man that domain is currently getting transferred to me so soon it will link to my actual website but yeah that's what I got for you guys this week I'm still very very busy in my uh real life job so you know tis the season for fewer videos but I'll be back as soon as I can be back now do you like what you saw we have a good old Danger think about subscribing and thank you for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: Cranktown City

Views: 21,300

Keywords: plasma cutter, cnc plasma, cnc, linuxcnc, full size plasma, small shop, cnc machine, computer numeric control, diy, diy cnc, do it yourself, homemade, project, welding, weldingproject

Id: ggnd5RdA-Yo

Length: 27min 5sec (1625 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 22 2023