PLASMA CUTTING TEST (short vid)

A quick test with the x-carve and plasma cutter for a possible purchase of a second x-carve in the future just for plasma cutting. More testing will be conducted. Shield and grounding the whole system for R.F. interference will be added as well as a table with dust collection. Fire suppression was at hand as well as quick power disconnect.


The wonderful people at INVENTABLES could just give me a machine to mod just kidding lol.

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thats fantastic!

That is awesome. This is part of the reason I bought the x-carve, to possibly mod it for plasma.

Could you give a little more info on your torch mount and what program you used to cut?

Thanks,
Jason

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I used easel till i can find something more tuned to what i need. The plasma cutter is a campbell hausfeld got it on sale at menards last year. for around $450. I cut the mount from mdf for the test run painted with high temp engine paint just a circle with a hole for the plasma head to fit in and a rectangle piece attached to the side and bolted to the spindle mount the head was fitted in the holder then hose clamped in. If all goes well the same mount will me made from .5 inch aluminum i have on hand. And before anyone comments yes i know it is all one big fire hazard.

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Cool. I have a Miller plasma. I’ll have to figure out something program wise to use mine I believe. When you hit the trigger, if it isnt close enough to start cutting, it shuts off quickly. I don’t think mine can cut like yours without a program to turn the touch on and off.

I’ll have to try it though. I might be wrong.

Good job, looking forward to more videos.

Jason

use the waterjet/plasma cam tool in fusion 360 and the gcode importer in easel…

Thanks i had forgot about fusion

I am thinking about putting a outlet of some sort on the plasma that connects to the trigger wiring to connect to a relay connected to the spindle control.

I just finished a new torch mount made from a scrap heat sink from a big pwm drive all cut in easel.

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can you post the files tom make the torch holder (I would really like to modify my X-Carve to plasma cut like this) Thank you.

The rectangle section was modified from .5 to .75 to better accommodate the screws that go into the clamp.
And i super glued the two cut parts as to hold them in place for drilling and tapping. then heated with torch to break the bond when finished

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Just thought there may be some interest in my first run on a 1mX1m Xcarve as a plasma cutter. Take a look:
Youtube Video

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looks good

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I made your mount (thanks ShaneBell) and installed on my 1k X 1k x-carve with a x-controller, every time it starts it will cut about .5 (1/2) inch then lose communication with the controller. did you wire up any special grounds etc.? I see that you are using the MDF waste board under yours, I built a plasma table (metal) and I think I might need to ground it somehow. thanks for any insight.

I got lucky and did not have issues but ground everything. have you tried moving the plasma cutter as far as possible and ground the frame of the xcarve the computer and the controller. wire mesh can also be used as shielding. I dont know if it will help but disconnect your limit switches they seem to be the most affected by rf interference. I don’t know if your plasma is 110 or 220 vac but is it on a separate circuit? My plasma does not affect my xcarve but the drill press does when i quit using limit switches the issue went away. thats about all I got that I can think of hope it helped.

tried moving it away as far as the cables would let me (about 6 foot) still lost connection to USB (mouse and all) I think it is because I have a high frequency start igniter on the plasma cutter, it is 220 volt 60 amp unit from eastwood. I have grounded everything to the common ground on the 110 circuit. thanks for the input.

Here was a thread I was reading before I started my plasma cnc adventure you may find the help you need here. Help - Get interference from Plasma on my PC. but the only other thing I could see is maybe mount the xcarve on something non conductive then mount to the cutting table to isolate the ground from the xcarve. witch if i remember correctly that was one of the things they talked about.

Are you guys still Plasma cutting with X Carve?

I’m thinking of getting that new X carve. Not sure if anyone has used that yet for Plasma cutting.

If I smoke the x controller while plasma cutting I’m wondering how hard it is to replace?

Thx,
Dan in PA

I still plasma cut but it has been a few months no projects have came up that require it. so far I have not had interference issues but it may be because my cutting table is isolated the machine itself. I would at minimum recommend making a cutting surface to put on the xcarve and do some test cuts while the machine is running at the other end doing some light test cuts to see how your machine reacts before proceeding. The xcarve seems to be picky on the plasma cutter used.

Thanks Shane. I like the idea of doing test plasma cuts while the XCarve is cutting wood.

I’ll buy the XCarve and try to do up an table to keep plasma area separately grounded from the XCarve machine. I read in other posts about keeping XCarve frame, controller and PC grounded together. Then keepin the Plasma ground separate makes sense.