neohic Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 I've said it a few times before, but I teach at a Technical College. School has been out for a couple of weeks now, and I usually have about a month off during the summer. Not so much this year. I had a week off, then the school decided that it would be a good idea to bring me back for a couple weeks to take care of a project that has been on the back burner for the past couple years. Here's the back story: I went to school eight years ago now and we had this amazing CNC plasma table that nobody seemed to know how to use or what to do with. Well, that just wasn't good at all! It was me and another student that took it upon ourselves to stick around after class and figure things out. We did. We made some cool stuff. Then we graduated. Fast forward a few years and I take on a job at the same school I went to. The thing is, class sizes kept growing and space was limited in the shop... and the table was taken apart and put into storage. Mega bummer! A couple years later and we expanded the shop. A couple years later again and it's now time to put it back into service! Just set it up, right? Wrong... Originally, there was no ventilation for the table and it was just grandfathered from year to year. So even if we were to set everything back up exactly where it was, we would have to add a $20k air cleaner and a way to feed said air cleaner from the table. Enter a side-draft table! I went around to a few local shops to see how their tables were set up. Being that we're a school, most shops love to let me in and poke around and be nosey! I found one that I liked and it had a simple design... simple in terms of moving parts and easy of fabrication, anyhow. Pictures!!!... crappy cell phone pictures, but pictures none the less... Air cleaner and frame: Now, originally, the frame and plasma were bought but the slat table was built here. It had good bones, so I decided to strip it down and use it for its frame. Here's how it's going to work: As the gantry moves back and forth with the plasma head, there will be a torpedo shaped suction head that moves with it. This side of the table was totally cut off and I cut out the new side with these windows. The suction torpedo then extends down into a tube. The plan is to put some rubber belting on each side of the opening of the top of the tube. As the torpedo travels back and forth, the rubber will open and close around it keeping the suction localized through the head. In the end, there will be vertical slats for the material being cut to sit on to keep it up and off the table. Those slats will run in line with the line with the head to keep the suction right where the material is being cut. See? I said it was easy! More pictures... Everything is adjustable both up and down and left and right. Originally, there were all kinds of legs on the table. Being that I cut off two of them to make room for the suction tube along the frame, I had to get creative to at least put one back for some support. Let's make it a table! One sheet one... ... two sheet two... Had to make up a run off bumper also. Being that the head is centered to the cutting head, some of it will always be farther further than everything else. This was made up to keep the suction on the table and not from the rest of the room. Added some expanded metal to the windows to keep smaller debris from entering the suction tube. Then the ventilation guys came over and had a look at things. Ideally, the suction tube should have as gentle of a curve as possible for the best flow and performance. Being that everything had to be close to the wall to save space, this could not happen. Fortunately, our air cleaner is way bigger than it needs to be. Hopefully I can open this up a little more once I know how the rubber belting will go. Obligatory close up of tube fit up... even if it is 10" tube... Obligatory close up of weld... While this was happening, I had already brought the table out to paint everything. Might as well make it match the $20k air cleaner and $45k plasma cutter! I try and think about the future too with projects like this. For the ease of moving it around, should it ever need to move, I added a lug at one end. Keep in mind that this all happened over this week. I was hoping to get further along, but things are always more difficult than they should be when one is working by themselves on a project like this. Next week will include fire brick to line the bottom of the table. At the end of the day, our electrician got done with his portion too. Very happily, and after over six years of sitting, a breaker was flipped and a green led display came back to life! Incredibly excited to get this up and running! I'm already thinking of all the cool stuff I could do with it!... granted, all while keeping things education oriented. :D Stay tuned for more next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 someday... someday I'll have a welder of my own... top notch work, as usual. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpace6a Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Had one in the weld shop I where i went for votech. Although the entire shop was designed exclusively by the instructor, so the cnc table had its own special vents and fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neohic Posted August 7, 2013 Author Share Posted August 7, 2013 someday... someday I'll have a welder of my own... Careful, Pete... with great power comes great responsibility. :smart: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 someday... someday I'll have a welder of my own... Careful, Pete... with great power comes great responsibility. :smart: funny you should say that... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camjeep3 Posted August 8, 2013 Share Posted August 8, 2013 We have one in the welding shop at school too... Never seen it used. I don't think my instructor knows how. So it sits Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neohic Posted August 8, 2013 Author Share Posted August 8, 2013 It's done!... as far as I can get it anyhow. The ventilation is on hold until the HVAC guys come back to connect the dots. They dropped off an adapter ring to weld on at the business end of the vent tube. Belting went in place. Everything got run back and forth to check for clearances. Paint... final fit up... had some professionals come in to level and square the frame... now it's all up to the school's electrician to drill for some new grounds through the floor. More pictures! I made up some temporary table slats with high hopes of cutting something with it this week. Still need to wait on the rest of the world for that though. Very happy with how everything came out! Even the pros asked where we found such a custom engineered vent system! The for real slats will be made up similar fashion. Planning to make up sections of slats so they'll be easier to replace and easier to clean out the little bits and pieces out of the bottom of the table. Otherwise, everything fits very well with the rest of the shop. It's a little tight, but it was placed in a way that it would use up a bunch of odd real estate in that lab. Now to finish cleaning up the rest of the shop before the students come back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neohic Posted October 31, 2013 Author Share Posted October 31, 2013 All of a few minutes ago... THE TABLE LIVES!!! :banana: Been fighting to get a damaged encoder for one of the motors figured out. Still need to calibrate things, but the basics are up and running! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earl*t Posted November 2, 2013 Share Posted November 2, 2013 Does this year's curriculum include producing Comanche parts on the plasma cutter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xjrev10 Posted November 2, 2013 Share Posted November 2, 2013 Does this year's curriculum include producing Comanche parts on the plasma cutter? Good post! Keep giving this cat ideas! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neohic Posted November 3, 2013 Author Share Posted November 3, 2013 Does this year's curriculum include producing Comanche parts on the plasma cutter? Maybe dome fuel sending unit parts? :peek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earl*t Posted November 3, 2013 Share Posted November 3, 2013 :thumbsup: I'll pre order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spectormj Posted February 15, 2014 Share Posted February 15, 2014 the CNC at my school is a hyro base plasma cutter that being said its one bad beast I helped one of my buddys there make a set of steel knuckles out of fairly thick steel plate i wanna say 16th inch or maybe inch thick..but i may be off it was a cold day and i wasnt top gun cause i had been sick the night before but heck they turned out good and propper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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