Rods "Spaceship" Scratch built Plasma Cutter build

Very nice Rod!
I'm almost ashamed to show you mine  at least the panel is milled and written with my cnc.

billykid wrote:

Very nice Rod!
I'm almost ashamed to show you mine  at least the panel is milled and written with my cnc.

So many ways. I did think of making a plasmacut enclosure and folding it up. I have done one before which looked amazing once it was powdercoated. But really for $200, the enclosure seemed to be the easier way. The needed to be a lot of standoffs for DIN rails etc to be welded on.

Building an actual enclosure box seems to be one of those things you do once, then understand why they are the price they are.
At least that's how it was with me. LOL

That looks awesome! Your mention of running the stepper drivers on AC reminded me of some experimenting I did on an old Tormach 1100. Bypassed the 48v DC altogether and put in some DM2282T drivers connected directly to the 220v in. Made a much cleaner system, and I could run the steppers with about 4 times the acceleration and more than double the ultimate speed with those drives at the higher voltages.

Made me wonder why I wouldn't go that route on any homebuilt machine. The DM2282T were not cheap, but compared to drivers and a good DC transformer setup it wasn't that big a difference. And definitely would simplify the enclosure!

I almost never see these drivers used anywhere.

Regardless, I have learned a lot from your posts and your youtube vid on your build. Thanks for sharing all of it!

BruceCharlesDesigns wrote:

Bypassed the 48v DC altogether and put in some DM2282T drivers connected directly to the 220v in. Made a much cleaner system, and I could run the steppers with about 4 times the acceleration and more than double the ultimate speed with those drives at the higher voltages.

Made me wonder why I wouldn't go that route on any homebuilt machine. The DM2282T were not cheap, but compared to drivers and a good DC transformer setup it wasn't that big a difference. And definitely would simplify the enclosure!
 

Hmm, still a lot cheaper than what the drives and power supply in that box are.
The other thing I've been playing with are ethercat drives. This enclosure is on my mill conversion. 400 x 400mm was all they had in stock and its just not big enough to use conduit.
 

It has very simliar bones to the plasma control box.  Same safety circuit, same power supplies same fan, just not enough room to be tidy.

 

I'll have to head up soon Rod and check out all the amazing work.