I did a thing............

[fixitguy]

In my hiatus of spending time here in the past few years, I was busy, real busy. I needed a new toy, and 50k was out of budget. After countless hours of research, I felt confident on the product. 
I called the owner of the company that designed to equipment a number of times, finally drove to Minneapolis and picked up the parts in person. Two winters of toying around with building it , it finally came to life. 

Video is not mine, but the same build. 




www.precisionplasmallc.com/My_Homepage_Files/Page3.html

[fordy]

.........Why , are the vertical metal separation walls so close together ? And , it looks like they need to be lower and completely covered by the liquid , to prevent damage from the cutting head !?

[Ozarks Tom]

fixitguy, Assuming this is to be a money maker, and not just a hobby, what type products are you going to be producing?

Thanks for the video, I've never seen one in action before.

[Jolly]

I'm curious like Tom...

[fixitguy]

Nov 5, 2020 7:38:55 GMT fordy said:

.........Why , are the vertical metal separation walls so close together ? And , it looks like they need to be lower and completely covered by the liquid , to prevent damage from the cutting head !?

The slats holding the metal off the water are close together to prevent cut pieces for tipping up and allowing the torch to collide.

The water is a bit low in the video, I think for ease of getting a good video. The water does two things, keeps the metal cool and takes about 80% of the smoke out of the air. 

The torch head rides on a magnetic base, if it has a collision with something it knocks it off the base shutting down the machine (most of the time) 

[fixitguy]

Nov 5, 2020 12:42:25 GMT Ozarks Tom said:

fixitguy , Assuming this is to be a money maker, and not just a hobby, what type products are you going to be producing?

Thanks for the video, I've never seen one in action before.

I started off doing some flat wall hangings and wind spinners to learn how to run the machine. Because of the relatively inexpensive price point to get into a low end 2 x2 table at about 6k the flat garden art type market is flooded. Lots of guys can cut the material, but cant weld any thing more that a tack weld.
My table will hold a 4ft x 8ft sheet, and will cut 5/8 plate. With that I am capable of cutting some large items. 
I seem to have found a nitche in 3D garden statues for the moment. Along with that came custom orders for about anything you can dream up. I built a horse and sold it to a bar called the rusty horse saloon. A winery 3 hours away asked for a few butterflys and a giant one about 6ft tall to hang on the building.
I'd like to be into custom equipment mods like grapple buckets and other equipment related items, along with custom gates and outdoor railings etc.
It all takes time. I hope on having a web site up and running by spring.

[Ozarks Tom]

Sounds like a plan. I've always thought for a small operation a niche, underserved market can be a real money maker. Little competition, and everyone knows custom work is as much art as product, and everyone also knows art costs money.

Just a suggestion, but you might consider investing in a small flyer/brochure for designers and architects in your area letting them know of your capabilities.

[fixitguy]

some build photos

[fixitguy]

[fixitguy]

[fixitguy]

[fixitguy]

[Ozarks Tom]

See? That's artistry. I don't care if it's automated, there's a good amount of vision and craftsmanship that went into those creations.

I'll give you an example from my background. I could cover a 500sf area with wood flooring for about $7per square foot any day of the week, but, if someone wanted something really unique, something that makes a statement to their ingenuity, that same area might cost $72 per square foot.

We had the custom built machinery that eliminated many, many tedious hours of sculpting each board, inlaying features, even doing the seemingly impossible installations with trade secret materials. I've even had meetings where the designer asked if I was charging enough! Of course, one thing many people don't realize designers charge an average of 10% of the installation.

In your case, the more expensive a creation is to the designer, the more money they make. Handled properly, it looks to me like you've got a gold mine in waiting.

[farmrbrown]

fixitguy, I'm very jealous, lol. Almost got a similar build-it-yourself CNC router for wood working but haven't even built my shop yet.
One thing at a time, right?
If you need any help though, hit me up.
Large or small, 3D programming, parts, tooling or troubleshooting - I was in CNCs for over 30 years and it would be a pleasure to stay in the loop since I left that field a few years ago for good.
Nice work!

[fixitguy]

farmrbrown , Thanks.
I'm pretty novice on the CAD end yet, most of my cut files are from file sharing.
I have a background in industrial maintenance. The first company I started out at in 1995 had press brakes and other equipment from the 1940-1960's, we had to update them with safety features to get them up to snuff.

I got a big surprise when a co-worker smoked a old 1980's Allen and Bradley PLC, The replacement was about as big as a cigarette pack, lol. Two days later the new PLC was sitting on my tool box when I got to work, My boss said "you know more about computers than them rest of the crew, make it work". The PLC controlled 5 separate machines. Took me about a week to fine tune all the little timing for the different materials.
A few days after it was running nice, the boss showed up just before lunch break unannounced and escorted the entire 2nd shift crew to the steak house down the street.

The second place I worked was pretty hi-tech, and terribly safety orientated. Ran a ton of freak drives for the machines, most were confined to a single room with a halon fire suppression. I swear your hair would stand up when up walked in. I can still remember the smell of burnt electrical when we had a fire, ishy.

The third place was a dairy, low tech. They ordered a Hi-tech machine 2 years prior to me working their. The never could make it all work properly for production use. Well, guess who was assigned to "make it work", me. Lots of re-engineering on that baby. Whey powder dust on photo eyes, don't quite jive for extended periods of time, lol

I've been out of that field for 13 years now so everything takes me 2x's as long to figure out.
My son was going to go to tech school this year for mechanical engineering, but with the covid we all decided to wait until school is back to normal. I'm hoping he can teach the old man some new stuff.