CNC Plasma Cutter Vote 2022
Sponsor
Ron Olson
James Lamken
History
- First Draft of Proposal: 11/2/2022
- Mailing List Announcement:
- Officially Proposed:
- To be Voted on:
Background
PS1 has had a CNC Plasma Cutter since CNC Plasma Cutter Vote V2. The machine has a rather ... interesting ... history that a number of folks can expound upon, but long-story-short, it's a homemade machine that has been fraught with issues from the very beginning. It has only been through the work of a number of folks who have kept the machine running and even improved it through the years that it lasted as long as it did.
In November of 2021 the control box, essentially the core part of the machine, shorted out due to being splashed with water and coolant when the table was being filled. Due to the homemade-nature of the machine, as well as its age, certain parts were no longer obtainable, necessitating the entire controller to be replaced. I had made what I believed to be cheaper decision, to try to replace the controller, using some money from my 2022 Hot Metals budget, and keep the table basically the same.
That idea hasn't worked out. 2022 has had a number of challenges and it wasn't until late summer when I was really able to start to work on this. After doing some research I purchased some equipment from Mesa Electronics that burned out. When I contacted them for replacements, they indicated they had no inventory and would only know when they had more when the truck backed up to their dock.
Also, one of the main issues with the existing machine is that its cuts were not fantastic; everyone who has used the machine has likely noted that the edges are generally wavy. This is as a consequence of the table being insufficiently stiff allowing wobble, especially when doing curves at higher speeds. The thought is that this may be mitigated by adding some crossbars underneath, but this is not certain and when I investigated how much the metal would cost this past summer, it was ridiculously expensive.
Throw in that I just don't have the time to cobble together a control box, weld the supports, etc., with no certainty that the cut quality will improve, or for that matter, that it will work at all; I have been very public about my lack of experience in this area and while it's fun to learn, and just in the bit I have done I've learned quite a bit, there's no certainty the machine will be up and running anytime soon.
TL;DR You Deserve Better
The CNC plasma machine gets a lot of use; when it was running it was probably getting similar usage as the ShopBot. For the year the machine has been unavailable, I have been either emailed or DM'ed generally polite versions of "Is it working yet?" and I totally understand that there's a number of folks with projects that need this machine; it's an invaluable asset and, honestly, should be treated as such, and not as a cool Hackaday-Science-Fair project where there's no expectation that it should actually be usable.
Thus I essentially am saying that we should give up on the existing machine, in total, and replace it with a new one.
Have a Particular Machine in Mind?
Wait, why this machine?
Why Should We Get This?
What Are the Plans For the Existing Machine?
To help put the scrapper's kids through college.
Language
We authorize the board to spend up to $7500 to acquire an AC/DC TIG welder and all necessary accessories.