Building a 3-axis plasma table with mesa 7i96s, THCad-2 and nema23 steppers

Rotary machines for round tube are easy, just set them as normal 3 axis machine and make separate configs for each diameter, and use normal 2.5D CAM.
Square tubing is much harder to do properly.
And, i have built machine with attached rotary, almost always concluded that separate machines are better. You can not use both parts of the machine at the same time.

Sorry for the late message. Unfortunately I had to give the project less priority. 
At the moment very busy with my full time work, my own company and graduating from my bachelor mechanical engineering next to a more than full-time job. 

I am slowly designing further on the mechanical part during my breaks. The hardware will be a pc that runs on plasmac in combination with a mesa board and a thcad. 

The drive will be a belt, I do not believe that this stretch is noticeable under the load of plasma cutting. Much cheaper and simpler in design than rack and pinion.

 

tommylight wrote:

Last i checked, something that comes close to QtPlasmaC in functionality (not in usability by far, much harder to use) was over 170000$ with a 300A plasma source that costs 84000$, leaving the machine price at 86000$ for 6X2.5M cut envelope!

Are you saying that plasma table you checked was about a quarter million? USD? 170 000 + 80 000 ?

No, total was 170000$, the price of the included XPR300 was 84000$.

About 8-10 years ago we looked at an entry level hi definition plasma table and it was AUD $130k direct from the manufacturer.

To normal people, those numbers seem very far fetched as there is no pricing info for anything like that.
As Americans say: if you have to ask for the price, you can not afford it.
And when you do ask, be sitting with a glass of cold water in hand and 911 on speed dial.
Only when you have invoices in hand for such stuff, you start believing (coupled with the headache it induces)
See if you can find pricing for commercial license 5 axis CAM and report back here, if you can!