Oh shoot... You are right. Should be mm/min. for the speed. I have pinned this comment. With videos this long I usually miss something obviously like that.
This is the absolute gold standard on how tutorials should be made. Informative, thorough, well researched, clear, easy to follow. It shows what went wrong and how it was fixed. It shows different alternatives and the factors to consider when evaluating alternatives. I don't think I have ever seen a better designed and presented tutorial. Well done.
Great video. We built a 4'x9' CNC Plasma cutter about 4 years ago. We thought about building our own controller or going with one of the cheap ones. We went with a commercial quality controller and did not have any problems with EMI. The torch cable is in the cable tray/chain. We milled the torch holder out of aluminum and use a couple of magnets to hold the torch holder to the z-axis. The HyperTherm 45 will cut up to 5/8" decent but when we cut thicker stuff, we can mount an oxy-acetylene torch on it. The HyperTherm has voltage sensing so the torch height is adjusted automatically while cutting after the initial pierce. After the initial build, we made the gantry higher and mounted a chuck on the table so we can cut up to 6" diameter pipe. I guess we are going to build a CNC router now.
Put your ground rod outside wherever possible & run the lead to the machine. You are the first person to discuss the need for a large air compressor & the duty cycle of the plasma cutter, WELL DONE!
I had the same problem with the noise resetting my controller. I tried everything you mentioned, at the end i made a box for all the electronics separate from the machine on the left side, and the plasma cutter on the right side. No such problems since. I use a cheap plasma cutter. I Hope this helps someone to not go through a month of troubleshooting and fried electronics :)
Okay so I just bought my first plasma cutter. Nice unit but it was broken when I bought it. The gentleman I bought it from could not figure it out. I took my time downloaded all the manuals and tracked all the systems. It only took me two weeks to get this one working. Plasma cutters are usually pretty simple if you happen to buy a used one that's not working. Make sure it at least turned on and air flows before you buy it though. If it does not turn on most likely the main board is bad and it's not worth the used price. I picked up mine for $200 and it's a PCM 750i so this is the one I will be incorporating into my table! I'm glad to see a lot of people building these things. I have access to one all times it's such a massive machine though that I'm not cutting any steel that size I've seen him cut upto 4 inch thick Steel whereas my machine will only do about an inch-and-a-half maxed out! Another word of advice is run about 40% of the duty cycle to keep the longevity of your unit
I hope you guys enjoy my CNC plasma cutter build. It’s a long video, but there is a montage of some of my completed projects at the very end that you won’t want to miss!
Great vid! But i nearly swallowed my tongue when you said they wanted 1000 dollar for a custom tray. I work in a metallshop in Sweden, we do steel, iron, stainless and alu parts in plate, small series or oneoff´s. A pan that size in stainless would cost us at the tops 200 dollar to manufacture. Add for profit and such, but at the end it would not be more than 300-350 USD for the customer. Thank you for a fun video, and enjoy your new toy!
Klas, Yah I live in a bit city that is rapidly expanding. Half of the fabrication places I contacted wouldn't even consider doing a one-off part... I wish I lived near your company
@@DrDFlo Even here there are not many oneoff workshops left, but we have a steady customerflow of regulars and newbies wanting everything from decorative metallcoverings to staircases and machineparts... Hope you find a metallshop in your area that likes to do a bit of trade with others than big firms, and doing it for a reasonable amount of money and not that 1000$ bullshit! That´s just greed!
while school systems are different, consider speaking with your local tech school welding instructor. that is an easy welding project, and if you supply the materials, most schools will do the work at a very reasonable rate. (last time I had some welding done (sealing the leak in the fuel tank of my motorcycle) about 6 years back, it cost something like $10 per semester to have "access" to the programs, and $5 per project to get the welding done. (I am planning to put them to work again in the not too distant future building several parts for my truck such as a custom cargo rack (mostly because I do not have a tubing bender, or a place to set up a welder)) the students generally enjoy getting to work on real world projects instead of just welding scrap metal. Keep in mind some projects might involve more than one "work order" meaning they can tack on additional fees for services... this can add up fast when you need something like the machine shop making 5-10 parts for your single project. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- it is true that most fabrication shops do not want to mess with one off parts...it is a lower profit margin. after all... that might take someone on a metal brake all of 10 minutes to make the 4 bends in a cut piece of material. someone is going to spend maybe 5 minutes per corner setting up and cutting the corner notches, then someone is going to spend another 5-10 minutes with a tig welder sealing up the corners. on the other hand if they are doing batch work, they might be producing 10 parts an hour for someone ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- on the other hand, the you's and me's, we would just cut 4 strips and weld them to the base, maybe even weld in a train bung if we make the pan out of mild steel, we maybe have $80 US invested in the materials, and we spend an hour or two laying out the pieces cutting them, welding them, testing for leaks, fixing the pinholes we missed :)
Hi David, I just wanted to say thank you for sharing this video. I appreciate your honesty in sharing your mistakes and subsequent learnings. You have saved me from making many of the same mistakes in my own build. Well done and keep them coming!
I had the exact same issue with a Mach3 home made cnc and a cheap ebay 50A plasma cutter, I had no previous experience with plasma cutting and spent about 6 months trying to isolate the circuit from the EMP noise, never could, ended up selling the CNC machine with a spindle cutter, now thinking on getting back on the plasma cutter thing with a more robust and expesive plasma cutter, Thank you!
you could have a ground loop issue. Make sure each piece only has a single path to ground. Unplug all the power cords and make sure there is no continuity between grounds on different plugs. Otherwise, current can run through one cord, through the wall, and back up another cord. An often forgotten path is through the USB cable and through the computer, so buy a USB isolator. Another possible unwanted ground path is on that torch trigger, so check that circuit. Elsewhere, use plastic or ceramic mounting hardware, or relays and optocouplers
Very good tutorial, it covers a lot of important points and is very informative. The only thing I'd say is that although the leadscrews are protected by the C-beams, metal dust and debris will still come in contact with those screws. I know this because I operate a plasma CNC for work every day. So I suggest that accordian style dust covers be installed to protect the leadscrews. But otherwise excellent tutorial. PS: Rack and pinion is also typically used because it offers a much higher rate of speed, which is ideal for plasma CNC machines that have a more powerful power supply.
HI all, Really nice build. I had problems with the noise also. When I went and used a laptop instead of a desktop, no noise problems and I have been up and running for about 6 months now. Hope this helps anyone that is stuck. Stay safe out there.
I think this may be related to the fact that the desktop is sharing the same electric network as the plasma cutter and the noise is coming from there, maybe adding a UPS to the desktop might help filter the noise
You should still construct a water tub as a spark arrester below the bed. It should be slightly slanted so that the metal residue collects in a corner and can be easily cleaned.
My suggestion is going to be the grounding rod. I had a 6 foot grounding rod installed for my table and it was not only really easy to do but helped out immensely. I actually paid an electrician to do the grounding rod along with a dedicated high amp 240v circuit for the table. As it turned out, I could have done the grounding rod myself pretty easily. He did it in about 40 minutes and big chunk of the time was spent leaning on the hammer drill while it drilled its way through the concrete floor. As far as work support goes, my advice would be to use your table to cut slots in aluminum angle iron pieces that go across the Y axis on either end of the water pan. The use of aluminum is because it will be sitting in the water for possibly the life of your table. Next, go to your local metal supply and have them cut slats an inch or so taller than the slots you cut into the angle irons and just short of the length of the pan's inner dimension. Now you just drop the slats into the slots. Over time, as they become too cut up, I flip them over to get another round out of them.
Oh, one last thing. Don't go overboard on the slat thickness. They can be very thin (many hands make light work) and they are destroyed over time no matter how thick they are so might as well save some money on them. Quick question, does the Black Box do automatic height control based on torch current?
Amazing video! Thanks for putting in all the work and making it doable for the rest of us! I've been cutting several parts by hand on my plasma cutter and this seems loads easier.
im sitting 2 hours watching your videos and its 5 AM now, i only can say wow, you are a smart guy and i woul love to try some of the project you do anytime soon! thanks for the projects :)
Wow, I don't usually comment on videos but this build was amazingly informative and made me want to hop over to my CNC and start tinkering. Keep up the great work, you've got me sold on modding my workbee!
EMI kept me awake for weeks. finally. fully screened mesh cabling to the steppers only grounded at the controller. Ferrites on all cables . the stepper driver has opto isolated inputs but its then important not to use the same supply AND ground for the grbl controller . all grounds to a star point, all electronics in metal boxes. plasma cable supply and ground routed on opposite side to control. GRBL DIY plasma cutter, plywood and recycled steppers, super cheap and it made a windvane. love the channel.
DId you try a UPS power supply for computer and other Electronics?? If its conducted EMI the UPS supply ( should have) EMI filters. ALso try to plug it in to same circuit as Plasma Cutter...try and run it on a diff breaker. If its radiated EMI shield boxes should help on radiation EMI...steel box is better if its magnetic EMI as ALUM lets magnetic emi pass
Sorry I know older video but man, I wanted to say this is the most indepth build I have ever seen. Holy cow fantastic and informative. I will be referencing this video a lot on my build. I have the same california air compressor, LOVE that thing, my favorite ever. But I just use that inside the clean side of my shop. I have a 5hp 60gal for the rest. What scares me most about this cnc build is learning CAD Plus the cnc software too. No experience with that at all.
Good job. If interested, I have two suggestions. Run a water line on your torch head for the thin gauge materials. Helps reduce warping and jumping in the workpiece. Secondly, from solid square stock, fab out short obelisks with a substantial slot cut at the base and center. The flat bar fits in the slot which the obelisk may slide to the desired position. The purpose is to use the obelisk as a consumable. They protect the flat bar keeping the structure more sound for a longer period of time. The point of the obelisk creates a minimal target for the arc. Worth looking into. Peace out👍
@@scottwillis5434 Yes. Practically drown the sheet with water. The air pressure will blow the water away so there isn't any interference. The water is held back just far enough. Near the edge of the heat affected zone. As the torch travels, the water trails behind to cool off the material, minimizing contortions.
Wow you should be an instructor. Clear, concise, thorough with the right amount of hands on and theory. It would be exactly what I need if it had a rotary axis for notching pipes. As it is I have been looking at JD's Garage DIY build. Your build is much nicer but lacks this 1 critical feature that is a must have me and lots of other people.
Regarding a 3D printed torch holder: Consider printing a mold for the part, or casting a urethane mold from the original PLA part (well, an unmelted version of the part). Cast a new part in hard silicon. The silicon part (being a thermal set rather than thermal plastic) will be much more robust mechanically and thermally.
I have been thinking of buying a cnc plamsa cutter to use with my hypertherm 45XP. I dont have many options to choose from living in New Zealand. I could buy a really to go unit called the SWIFTY 600 (made in UK) 600mm by 600mm cutting area but costs NZ$13000 and it comes with a HyperTherm and they didn't want to sell the unit with out the cutter. then saw another UK unit called XtremePlasma and thats around NZ$9000. Came across the crossfire cnc plasma cutters and i was ok with the pricing but they wouldn't send to NZ. So after watching your video a couple of times over the last week and I asked OpenBuilds a couple of questions I am going to get the Lead 1010 router and make it into the cutter. Or if they release the plasma cutter model soon i may wait for that. Thanks to your video its made the decision easier. Now i will watch your Mill CNC video as that maybe my next project with my Taiwanese Bridgeport copied mill.
Awesome video. You might want to try placing the controller in a metal box that's grounded. It depends on weather the noise is radiated or conducted. I would try that first and move on from there. Keep up the great work!
I have had success converting a super cheap (Amazon open box) cnc laser into a cnc plasma. Had to relocate the control board shy of 3 feet from unit and replaced cabling with shielded wire and has worked flawlessly.
Hi, I don't know if you still want to try it because it has been some time you posted this video already and you bought another machine but... I am an electronics engineer and have worked with EMI for some time. What I would try first to solve the HF interference issue is: -Route the plasma cutter negative cable as close as possible to the torch cable. If possible moving the ground connection with the cutting head to minimize the loop. -Adding a choke around the output cables instead of everywhere else can be helpful as well. -Try to shield the spark gap in the HV generator inside the machine. If you or anyone else reading this comment try any of these, let me know if it helped. Nice video !!
Well done! Thank you for providing so much information in an interesting way, I am an occasional welder and want to improve, these vids are so perfect for that!
Build a water pan out of cement board then seal it with a coat of fiberglass. It works and you can still use a lattice of steel slats in it for support. Nice and cheap but don't forget to ad a drain fitting. I'm going to build plasma cutter pretty much like this and make it so it sets on my welding table with the shallow water pan on the table top. That way I can hang it on the wall when I'm not using it. Great video super detailed just the way I like it.
The noise you are experiencing is due to the plasma cutter as you stated earlier. Also, you stated that you weren't going to add a grounding rod in your garage. I used to do a lot of commercial wiring and what I would recommend is installing the grounding rod 6' away from the outside of your garage. And run the grounding (solid #4 copper wire) into your garage to a copper bus mounted to your garage wall. Then attached the ground from your plasma cutter to the copper bus. Look this up to verify my findings. I had an old stick welder that would inject high noise into the 220V line in my garage, and then through the whole house. Pissed the wife off something fierce. Good luck!
An excellent video. Information density is high, i like it, great signal to noise ratio. I started watching for your mill conversion with servos (doing the same) and stayed for the plasma, subscribed. And a butter licking dog! Lol
FANTASTIC! Thx for putting in all the obvious effort/hard work (on machine, and vid). Have been wanting to get into plasma cutting for a while. This vid is packed w/ valuable practical, and theoretical info. Great stuff. Thx, again. And, keep up the great work! P.S. I'm a regular F360 user (even teach it), so I really appreciate the F360 section at the end of the vid.
Noise mitigation Easy - have a separate cord that just connect outlet ground to the water box. Have your power supply plugged into a filtering power string and the box connected directly to the ground of your outlet (possibly a plug where only the ground is connected). Also separate power supply from frame with an insulator (e.g. mount to wood mounted to frame) Medium - some power supplies have dc- connected to AC ground. This can be tested with a multimeter with everything unplugged measuring resistance between negative terminal and ground terminal of power supply. If there is a connection get a better power supply (I think meanwell have isolation, based on online diagram). Hard - what you really need to do is isolate the ground of the processor from the ground of everything else, which is something that would have to be in your controller. A 5v dc-dc isolator (b0505S-1wr20) is a couple bucks used in CAN bus electronics. But you probably can't do that reasonably.
Nice video - well organized and you are a good speaker. @30m -- You show how you used those splicing connectors - I call them 'slice and dice connectors', as they often cut not only through the insulation but all a portion of the individual wires. If you remove your splice and inspect, you will see what I mean. And these days companies put the MINIMUM copper gauge they can get away with (or less), so every strand counts. Those connectors are convenient - but for reliability, soldering the connections is always preferable. For example carefully removing a ring of insulation, wrapping the splice of wires around a few times, soldering in and then either (a) encapsulate in epoxy, or (b) fold back with other wires and slide over shrink tubing.
Excellent video, thanks a lot sharing it with all of us ! I am thinking building a Plasma CNC cutter since one year and watched tens of youtube videos on that topic. I discover openbuilds with your video and actually, it makes me changing all my initial plans... You brings each key principle of such a project with a very nice structure and simple words. I will watch it one, two or maybe more times ;-)
Absolutely love it! To help you lead screw last longer you can add a dry lubricant as it does not bind with dust and other particles in the warehouse environment and lubes. I have seen these screw painted with a dry lubricant as well, however, I do not know what the process is. Nevertheless fricken awesome dude, you damn well read my mind. Just got to figure out where I can put it lol.
F****** awesome tutorial, very informative and well structured....Prob one of the best tut i have watched on youtube. Wel done, always excited when i get to watch your stuff. Keep it up
It always gets my goat when I see rubber/plastic/synthetic in a hot environment. I am referring to the wheels, primarily, as they are part of the tolerance of the cut. Good enough for woodworking, where the original CNC was used as a routing table. It just needs some attention for using in a hot dirty environment. Nice build though, keep up the good work.
Hi Sir, I am fully new for CNC plasma , | have set a CNC plasma after start to work then CNC X ,Y Z are vibrating ,when Plasma switch off then vibrating is off. For vibrating what to do solved this issue , Please suggest me .
There are plenty of easy to print heat resistant filaments out there. Annealed PLA is pretty awesome but there are polycarbonate and nylon blends that have desirable properties that can be printed on a relatively ordinary printer. Overture easy Nylon and Polylite PC mainly come to mind but there are others. ABS is a very good option for building mounts, brackets or other structural parts, it's fairly heat resistant, it doesn't deform as bad or has a tendency to crack over time like PLA or PETG does. Then there is ASA which is very similar to ABS but is more UV resistant, and assuming it doesn't go above 100C would probably be perfect for a mount.
Insulate the wires with aluminum foil then wrap them with an insulating tape. I work on a large industrial table and our omnic wires that control the cut sense are insulated with a foil then another plastic layer. It might work with your setup. We also have the wire looped 3 times around and inside those little magnet blocks instead of just the single line going through it. I dont know if any of this will help you but its worth a try. Our magnet blocks are bigger also.
Hey, it would be really great to get a follow up video of the cnc mill, maybe show us some cutting footage and talk about how it’s working out? Really nice work on the plasma table too!
Stay tuned. Definitely more CNC mill content coming soon (not the next video but the video after). A couple of quick updates, I’m using the ER tormach tool holding system for the R8 spindle, which has been great. I also switched to the Hallmark ITTP probe which has been way more reliable than my previous probe. I have mostly been buying tools and sharpening my skills over the past 6 months. Let me tell you buying and converting the mill is not the most expensive part... the amount of money that I have invested in tool holders and end mills is way higher than I thought. Definitely an expensive hobby. Still very happy with my purchase. It’s crazy the different parts I can churn out of my garage between the plasma cutter and the mill.
Plasma reaction produces high amounts of oxone, ventilation and filtration is necessary if good health is imperative. In Xerox we add Oxone filters in the machines since we use plasma in way to charge the paper.
Ferrite cores ferrite cores and lastly about 6 turns around ferrite cores the high frequency is traveling along your cables do to skin affect as in all wires including coax
All you need is a sheet metal brake and a welder to custom fabricate your own pan. My dad was in HVAC, and remember him custom fabricating his own in the 32" x 40" range.
Just go with a hypertherm power max……no electrical noise to shut down computers The biggest thing is grounds everything needs to be grounded ….everything you need a grounded rod in the ground close to the machine outside Large copper ground coming into the building where the plasma table is located Hypertherm sell a machine torch When I built my open build ox table years ago I tried a Chinese plasma table a simadra 50 amp I’m still using it for hand cutting That little $300 plasma is bad ass That being said nothing compares to hypertherm Nice video thanks for sharing
Love how at around 17:05 the way the camera is positioned, it looks like the cutter/z axis is just getting bigger as it otherwise stays in the same place onscreen
With regard to the noise issue, there are two ways to induce noise into a cable: Electrostatically i.e. capacitively and magnetically. The insulating of the table from the work piece reduces the electrostatic portion, but the magnetic part is made up of a loop which is bounded by your cutting current cable and your grounding current cable. The greater the area enclosed by the separation of these two cables the greater the inductance and thereby magnetic coupling to other devices cables. It also makes the electrostatic worse because the ground cable becomes more inductive, allowing the workpiece to radiate electrostatically as well. To reduce the inductance run the ground and the cutter cable as close to one another as possible for as long as possible(their magnetic fields will tend to cancel one another). Only let the ground diverge from the cutter current cable for as short a length as possible to connect to the workpiece. It will massively reduce the inductance and that means that the ground cable and workpiece will act more like a ground. Hope this helps.
If you're still curious about a possible solution to the emi with the first Plasma cutter, check out this. CCW® Armored Thermocouple, Single Pair, Overall Shield. They say it has "emi performance". I'm not sure if this is the same type of armored cable our data center uses, but if we're using something of the sort to protect it from solar flares; maybe it'll work for you. You would probably would need a faraday cage around the black box with special connectors for the wires also and maybe even all possible entry points. That's starting to sound more expensive than the new cutter.
Regarding grounding in your garage. I see you doing a whole lot of work setting up your plasma machine, and buying yet a second, expensive plasma driver. You are avoiding installing a ground rod in your garage, which is SO easy, and SO affordable. Your video: I am witnessing a talented geek avoiding a little primitive labor! Get yourself a Milwaukee SDS hammer drill, a concrete bit with a slightly larger diameter than the copper jacketed steel ground rod, the ground rod, drill a hole through your slab in a convenient spot along the wall, and use a small sledge hammer to drive the ground rod into the ground under your garage’s slab. If you buy an 8 or 10 foot ground rod, cut it down to below your ceiling height if necessary, get on a step ladder and pound away. The pounding will take you two minutes. Then connect your table to the rod. Comments, anyone?
You should make a cage anywhere possible which should aid somewhat at keeping RF frequencies at bay however your main issue you are having here is that when a spark is made you get a pulse of EM radiating outward from that pulse. When the pulse stops the EM field collapses which results in it inducing currents in anything conductive in its field. Do this super rapidly and what you get is electromagnetic frequencies in the RF range pulsing through conductive materials in the field around the arc. Normally one would shield using a faraday cage but in this case it is not that simple really. It is likely the Arc the cutter is using is a purposefully created RF frequency making your problem a bit worse honestly. I recommend grounding everything with chokes everywhere, more importantly of a variety of different sizes. If you can find out a rough range for the frequency that your cutters circuit is using it would help you fine tune what chokes you need but it is best if you have chokes that do not resonate with the circuit so that as a magnetic field is pulsed into the choke its collapsing field counters that of the circuit. The Chokes will help anything that is forced to be in the circuit with the cutter or at least close but without a doubt you should place metal mesh around your electronic so that EM fields can not get into them. Perhaps a full on metal box around your micro controller and camera you are filming with to block as much RF as humanly possible.
When you start the torch, it will splash water up and conduct thereby bypassing your insulation. Try putting a sheet of acrylic under the pan and then you can connect the ground clamp to the pan and this isolates the pan, material rest, and the material from the frame. Also the problem of air delivery can be fixed with an auxiliary air tank and a regulator on the output. More quantity can compensate for consistent delivery.
i work with ZM sheet metal inc, and i can get you a drain pan cheaper and bigger than that what you got. not costing thousand like you said. i enjoy watching your video cuz youre so smart you built your own machine wow. i am a vicon plasma machine operator and the reason why i came across your video is because my team are using the wrong tip burner with the machine causing it to burn out in just 4 days. i was hoping to get some suggestions if this is normal or should we use some other tip much stronger?
1) Use the earth from your garage mains electrical system to earth your table, use some nice thick cable. 2) Use twisted pair for your signal wires. 3) Use a braided shield over those signal cables (the sort of braid you get in coaxial cable, in fact you can strip some coaxial if you have any to pull the braid out and use it), grounded to your 24v power supply gorund, at ONE END OF THE BRAID ONLY, insulate the other end from anything else. 4) Move your blackbox away from the cutting area if you can. 5) Make your motor cable runs messy, straight neat cables pick up crosstalk very nicely, so within the cable tracks, make sure things are all a bit higgldy piggldy and mixed up. I know it'll mess with you, and feel wrong, but believe me one of the best ways to avoid cross talk and interferance on cables is to have them in one huge knotted mess, it stops big EM fields from forming properly. 6) Look at your configuration and think "earth loops" - multiple paths from a given point to the same earth are bad, remove as many as you can. Insulate your motors from the frame if you can. 7) Insulate the water table from your frame, not your work piece from the table. 8) Dont use T taps, there are way better options out there. Now sit in the corner and think on your sins. :-) *Your sins are absolved for sharing your hard work with us. Fingers crossed those steps will make your table useable.
The thermal dynamics is a good machine, however if wanting to stay with a cheaper cutter there are many examples of machines similar to your first , that have pilot arc. I use a ltp5000 which is an inexpensive pilot arc plasma. I run the torch lead in the same cable chain as the stepper cables and it works with no noise issues on my diy cnc plasma. Most of these use a SG-55 or AG-60 torch. There are cheap straight versions of these torches.
You are using a printed clip to hold your slats into your water tank. Cut the slats narrower and shorter with a little bit more material to space them further from the tank sides, then use a non-conductive spacer to isolate them from the tank bottom. This way you can place your parts directly to your slate and do away with the wood isolators. Also isolate the tank from the frame.
I would suggest using 0.1 microfarad disc ceramic capacitors across any leads going into the microcontroller. If you have a pair of wires that go out to a switch or something just put the capacitor across the input to the microcontroller otherwise you can run the capacitor leg with one to ground IE frame and then the other one to your input. The correct term for this is bypassing and it will shunt any high frequency AC electrical noise to the common ground for the machine. You can also get a bigger ferrite donut like a ft-240-43 toroid ferrite core and wrap the leads of concern several times maybe even up to 20 times if you have the wire length through that core and it will impart enough inductive reactants to that system to effectively choke off any high frequency currents going into the microcontroller. You might also be able to do the same thing with your work clamp lead and if you have a long enough plasma torch and a big enough ferrite core you could even wrap those conductors several times through a ferrite core in order to disrupt that circuit from a high frequency noise perspective. For more information look at just about any ham radio handbook or a specifically the ARRL amateur radio handbook for more rfi/emi solutions. Your other concern about properly grounding the machine might be able to be resolved by buying some wide copper strip or someone in copper braid from Amazon run this wide conductor from the frame of the machine tied into the frame of the plasma cutter through the shortest and widest lead possible, and then run another heavy strap or 1 in copper wire braid from the frame of the plasma cutter directly to the breaker panel behind your machine. Ideally you would tie it into the ground bus bar however you could also clean the paint off of the frame of the cabinet and secure it with a nut a bolt and a set screw type terminal. Wide and flat conductors are required due to a phenomenon called The skin effect whereby the higher the frequency of an ac voltage or current it uses a smaller and smaller cross-section of any given conductor sometimes as low as only a few thousands of an inch. Do this phenomenon a 1 inch copper or aluminum pipe for a grinding bus bar is more effective than a wire with the same cross section. Of course you could also use a strip that is 3.14 in wide to get the same result. I wish you the best of luck if I can help anybody out Google my business name and give me a call I'll be happy to help you out with issues like this.
this is absolutely fantastic build ....some plasma cutters put some kind of leather or a brush or something around the cutting head to reduce splash !!! that thing splashed water all over the place and that cant be good for the bearings and bolts and stuff you can see it in the plasma cutter of colin furze ......also i think you should add more water coz there is so much fumes coming from underneath the work piece and the thermal mass of the water you have will heat up fast and evaporate ...more thermal mass will surely help im sure you will bow our minds off in the next video ...keep up the good work
you can also twist your dc lines from your e-box to create a small capacitance. Also, when using your chokes on your lines, make a loop in your lines then clamp your chokes on the double part of the line. On top of all that, you can used braided shielding on all your power and ground lines, and take that to chasis ground. Good golly, if all that doesn't do it, you'll have to do something with the source/head. I work with RF and dc in close proximity all the time. Those are the basics without using active circuitry to cancel signals. Do you have a scope to see the noise?
stainless Steel Braided Sleeving works as a good EMI shield if you ground one end of it. I usually use plumbers solder, paste rosin and map gas to make one end solid and drillable. I will then cut the sleave to make it so I can run the cable through. Also flat fires radiate only on the sides vs round wires that radiate omnidirectional.
Recommendation, insulate the water table from the machine fram, print PLA or PC spacers that separate it from the frame itself and you should be more capable of using AC start on that plasma torch, that way you can also just ground the water table to the Plasma generator rather than reply on a clamp to the work piece. I recommend also adding a drain port to the water table
I was curious about the long cuts you make making the fire-pit. Was the dross/cut quality as good as you were hoping for and did the air supply/duty cycle hold up so you didn’t need to take rest breaks to either let the plasma cutter cool or the compressor catch up by filling the tank. Really good video. Not just an excellent tutorial on building the CNC but also on plasma-cutter selection. Looking forward to your future endeavors. Cheers!
David, I have a question for you. Since the water pan, slats and job material sit directly on the frame extrusions and the ground clamp is connected to the work material, do you think that insulating the water pan from the frame would help with EMI? I recently purchased Bestarc 50 plasma cutter, it has a pilot arc start and the euro style torch connections but is not LF. I can only afford one plasma cutter and decided to go the cnc route after I purchased the Bestarc. Thanks so much for your content..
Great video, though you said mm/s and not mm/m
Oh shoot... You are right. Should be mm/min. for the speed. I have pinned this comment. With videos this long I usually miss something obviously like that.
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This is the absolute gold standard on how tutorials should be made. Informative, thorough, well researched, clear, easy to follow. It shows what went wrong and how it was fixed. It shows different alternatives and the factors to consider when evaluating alternatives. I don't think I have ever seen a better designed and presented tutorial. Well done.
Thanks for your kind words!
Great video. We built a 4'x9' CNC Plasma cutter about 4 years ago. We thought about building our own controller or going with one of the cheap ones. We went with a commercial quality controller and did not have any problems with EMI. The torch cable is in the cable tray/chain. We milled the torch holder out of aluminum and use a couple of magnets to hold the torch holder to the z-axis. The HyperTherm 45 will cut up to 5/8" decent but when we cut thicker stuff, we can mount an oxy-acetylene torch on it. The HyperTherm has voltage sensing so the torch height is adjusted automatically while cutting after the initial pierce. After the initial build, we made the gantry higher and mounted a chuck on the table so we can cut up to 6" diameter pipe. I guess we are going to build a CNC router now.
Hey that sounds great, do you ave a detailed video of you CNC build
Put your ground rod outside wherever possible & run the lead to the machine.
You are the first person to discuss the need for a large air compressor & the duty cycle of the plasma cutter, WELL DONE!
I had the same problem with the noise resetting my controller. I tried everything you mentioned, at the end i made a box for all the electronics separate from the machine on the left side, and the plasma cutter on the right side. No such problems since. I use a cheap plasma cutter.
I Hope this helps someone to not go through a month of troubleshooting and fried electronics :)
Okay so I just bought my first plasma cutter. Nice unit but it was broken when I bought it. The gentleman I bought it from could not figure it out. I took my time downloaded all the manuals and tracked all the systems. It only took me two weeks to get this one working. Plasma cutters are usually pretty simple if you happen to buy a used one that's not working. Make sure it at least turned on and air flows before you buy it though. If it does not turn on most likely the main board is bad and it's not worth the used price. I picked up mine for $200 and it's a PCM 750i so this is the one I will be incorporating into my table! I'm glad to see a lot of people building these things. I have access to one all times it's such a massive machine though that I'm not cutting any steel that size I've seen him cut upto 4 inch thick Steel whereas my machine will only do about an inch-and-a-half maxed out! Another word of advice is run about 40% of the duty cycle to keep the longevity of your unit
I was shocked when I visited your excellent website. KILLER descriptions and material. Thanks for the time you spend documenting everything so well.
I hope you guys enjoy my CNC plasma cutter build. It’s a long video, but there is a montage of some of my completed projects at the very end that you won’t want to miss!
Great vid! But i nearly swallowed my tongue when you said they wanted 1000 dollar for a custom tray. I work in a metallshop in Sweden, we do steel, iron, stainless and alu parts in plate, small series or oneoff´s. A pan that size in stainless would cost us at the tops 200 dollar to manufacture. Add for profit and such, but at the end it would not be more than 300-350 USD for the customer. Thank you for a fun video, and enjoy your new toy!
Klas,
Yah I live in a bit city that is rapidly expanding. Half of the fabrication places I contacted wouldn't even consider doing a one-off part... I wish I lived near your company
@@DrDFlo Even here there are not many oneoff workshops left, but we have a steady customerflow of regulars and newbies wanting everything from decorative metallcoverings to staircases and machineparts... Hope you find a metallshop in your area that likes to do a bit of trade with others than big firms, and doing it for a reasonable amount of money and not that 1000$ bullshit!
That´s just greed!
Is it possible to add a straight torch? It would probably be more suitable for improving the position and curvature of the cord. Awesome build.
while school systems are different, consider speaking with your local tech school welding instructor. that is an easy welding project, and if you supply the materials, most schools will do the work at a very reasonable rate. (last time I had some welding done (sealing the leak in the fuel tank of my motorcycle) about 6 years back, it cost something like $10 per semester to have "access" to the programs, and $5 per project to get the welding done. (I am planning to put them to work again in the not too distant future building several parts for my truck such as a custom cargo rack (mostly because I do not have a tubing bender, or a place to set up a welder)) the students generally enjoy getting to work on real world projects instead of just welding scrap metal. Keep in mind some projects might involve more than one "work order" meaning they can tack on additional fees for services... this can add up fast when you need something like the machine shop making 5-10 parts for your single project.
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it is true that most fabrication shops do not want to mess with one off parts...it is a lower profit margin. after all... that might take someone on a metal brake all of 10 minutes to make the 4 bends in a cut piece of material. someone is going to spend maybe 5 minutes per corner setting up and cutting the corner notches, then someone is going to spend another 5-10 minutes with a tig welder sealing up the corners. on the other hand if they are doing batch work, they might be producing 10 parts an hour for someone
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on the other hand, the you's and me's, we would just cut 4 strips and weld them to the base, maybe even weld in a train bung if we make the pan out of mild steel, we maybe have $80 US invested in the materials, and we spend an hour or two laying out the pieces cutting them, welding them, testing for leaks, fixing the pinholes we missed :)
The organization of this video is unreal, keep er goin
Hi David, I just wanted to say thank you for sharing this video. I appreciate your honesty in sharing your mistakes and subsequent learnings. You have saved me from making many of the same mistakes in my own build. Well done and keep them coming!
I had the exact same issue with a Mach3 home made cnc and a cheap ebay 50A plasma cutter, I had no previous experience with plasma cutting and spent about 6 months trying to isolate the circuit from the EMP noise, never could, ended up selling the CNC machine with a spindle cutter, now thinking on getting back on the plasma cutter thing with a more robust and expesive plasma cutter, Thank you!
Try eliminate the noise using heat proof rubber this will stop the positive feedback throughout the table and solve your noise problem
@@ger808 Different type of noise.
you could have a ground loop issue. Make sure each piece only has a single path to ground. Unplug all the power cords and make sure there is no continuity between grounds on different plugs. Otherwise, current can run through one cord, through the wall, and back up another cord. An often forgotten path is through the USB cable and through the computer, so buy a USB isolator. Another possible unwanted ground path is on that torch trigger, so check that circuit. Elsewhere, use plastic or ceramic mounting hardware, or relays and optocouplers
The quality in this build is unheard of
Thanks for taking the time to make and edit this video. It's giving me pause to the build vs buy debate in my head.
Very good tutorial, it covers a lot of important points and is very informative. The only thing I'd say is that although the leadscrews are protected by the C-beams, metal dust and debris will still come in contact with those screws. I know this because I operate a plasma CNC for work every day. So I suggest that accordian style dust covers be installed to protect the leadscrews. But otherwise excellent tutorial.
PS: Rack and pinion is also typically used because it offers a much higher rate of speed, which is ideal for plasma CNC machines that have a more powerful power supply.
This is probably the best tutorial I have ever seen! Love the in depth long format!!
HI all, Really nice build. I had problems with the noise also. When I went and used a laptop instead of a desktop, no noise problems and I have been up and running for about 6 months now. Hope this helps anyone that is stuck. Stay safe out there.
I think this may be related to the fact that the desktop is sharing the same electric network as the plasma cutter and the noise is coming from there, maybe adding a UPS to the desktop might help filter the noise
You should still construct a water tub as a spark arrester below the bed. It should be slightly slanted so that the metal residue collects in a corner and can be easily cleaned.
My suggestion is going to be the grounding rod. I had a 6 foot grounding rod installed for my table and it was not only really easy to do but helped out immensely. I actually paid an electrician to do the grounding rod along with a dedicated high amp 240v circuit for the table. As it turned out, I could have done the grounding rod myself pretty easily. He did it in about 40 minutes and big chunk of the time was spent leaning on the hammer drill while it drilled its way through the concrete floor.
As far as work support goes, my advice would be to use your table to cut slots in aluminum angle iron pieces that go across the Y axis on either end of the water pan. The use of aluminum is because it will be sitting in the water for possibly the life of your table. Next, go to your local metal supply and have them cut slats an inch or so taller than the slots you cut into the angle irons and just short of the length of the pan's inner dimension. Now you just drop the slats into the slots. Over time, as they become too cut up, I flip them over to get another round out of them.
Oh, one last thing. Don't go overboard on the slat thickness. They can be very thin (many hands make light work) and they are destroyed over time no matter how thick they are so might as well save some money on them.
Quick question, does the Black Box do automatic height control based on torch current?
Amazing video! Thanks for putting in all the work and making it doable for the rest of us! I've been cutting several parts by hand on my plasma cutter and this seems loads easier.
im sitting 2 hours watching your videos and its 5 AM now, i only can say wow, you are a smart guy and i woul love to try some of the project you do anytime soon! thanks for the projects :)
Cheers! Glad you are enjoying the content
Wow, I don't usually comment on videos but this build was amazingly informative and made me want to hop over to my CNC and start tinkering. Keep up the great work, you've got me sold on modding my workbee!
EMI kept me awake for weeks. finally. fully screened mesh cabling to the steppers only grounded at the controller. Ferrites on all cables . the stepper driver has opto isolated inputs but its then important not to use the same supply AND ground for the grbl controller . all grounds to a star point, all electronics in metal boxes. plasma cable supply and ground routed on opposite side to control. GRBL DIY plasma cutter, plywood and recycled steppers, super cheap and it made a windvane. love the channel.
Optoisolators are a great idea, provided that blackbox and steppers are electrically isolated via separate floating power supplies as you mention.
DId you try a UPS power supply for computer and other Electronics?? If its conducted EMI the UPS supply ( should have) EMI filters. ALso try to plug it in to same circuit as Plasma Cutter...try and run it on a diff breaker.
If its radiated EMI shield boxes should help on radiation EMI...steel box is better if its magnetic EMI as ALUM lets magnetic emi pass
Sorry I know older video but man, I wanted to say this is the most indepth build I have ever seen. Holy cow fantastic and informative. I will be referencing this video a lot on my build. I have the same california air compressor, LOVE that thing, my favorite ever. But I just use that inside the clean side of my shop. I have a 5hp 60gal for the rest. What scares me most about this cnc build is learning CAD Plus the cnc software too. No experience with that at all.
This is the best tutorial i have seen ever.
Good job. If interested, I have two suggestions. Run a water line on your torch head for the thin gauge materials. Helps reduce warping and jumping in the workpiece. Secondly, from solid square stock, fab out short obelisks with a substantial slot cut at the base and center. The flat bar fits in the slot which the obelisk may slide to the desired position. The purpose is to use the obelisk as a consumable. They protect the flat bar keeping the structure more sound for a longer period of time. The point of the obelisk creates a minimal target for the arc. Worth looking into.
Peace out👍
If you ran a water line to the torch head, then what? Would it spray onto the material?
@@scottwillis5434 Yes. Practically drown the sheet with water. The air pressure will blow the water away so there isn't any interference. The water is held back just far enough. Near the edge of the heat affected zone. As the torch travels, the water trails behind to cool off the material, minimizing contortions.
Wow you should be an instructor. Clear, concise, thorough with the right amount of hands on and theory. It would be exactly what I need if it had a rotary axis for notching pipes. As it is I have been looking at JD's Garage DIY build. Your build is much nicer but lacks this 1 critical feature that is a must have me and lots of other people.
Regarding a 3D printed torch holder:
Consider printing a mold for the part, or casting a urethane mold from the original PLA part (well, an unmelted version of the part). Cast a new part in hard silicon. The silicon part (being a thermal set rather than thermal plastic) will be much more robust mechanically and thermally.
I have been thinking of buying a cnc plamsa cutter to use with my hypertherm 45XP. I dont have many options to choose from living in New Zealand.
I could buy a really to go unit called the SWIFTY 600 (made in UK) 600mm by 600mm cutting area but costs NZ$13000 and it comes with a HyperTherm
and they didn't want to sell the unit with out the cutter. then saw another UK unit called XtremePlasma and thats around NZ$9000.
Came across the crossfire cnc plasma cutters and i was ok with the pricing but they wouldn't send to NZ.
So after watching your video a couple of times over the last week and I asked OpenBuilds a couple of questions I am going to get the Lead 1010 router
and make it into the cutter. Or if they release the plasma cutter model soon i may wait for that.
Thanks to your video its made the decision easier. Now i will watch your Mill CNC video as that maybe my next project with my Taiwanese Bridgeport copied mill.
Fantastic video and about time someone in the history of youtube actually chose great background music
Awesome video. You might want to try placing the controller in a metal box that's grounded. It depends on weather the noise is radiated or conducted. I would try that first and move on from there. Keep up the great work!
Great Video, I myself know having a cnc plasma is the best fun machine to have in a work shed. Thanks for sharing!
This is massive. In a positive way, naturally.
I have had success converting a super cheap (Amazon open box) cnc laser into a cnc plasma. Had to relocate the control board shy of 3 feet from unit and replaced cabling with shielded wire and has worked flawlessly.
your my new fav bro, love the long builds and attempt at budgeting! ;]
Hi, I don't know if you still want to try it because it has been some time you posted this video already and you bought another machine but... I am an electronics engineer and have worked with EMI for some time. What I would try first to solve the HF interference issue is:
-Route the plasma cutter negative cable as close as possible to the torch cable. If possible moving the ground connection with the cutting head to minimize the loop.
-Adding a choke around the output cables instead of everywhere else can be helpful as well.
-Try to shield the spark gap in the HV generator inside the machine.
If you or anyone else reading this comment try any of these, let me know if it helped.
Nice video !!
You bad bad person! How could you enable us with such information and instruction. You saint.
Well done! Thank you for providing so much information in an interesting way, I am an occasional welder and want to improve, these vids are so perfect for that!
Build a water pan out of cement board then seal it with a coat of fiberglass. It works and you can still use a lattice of steel slats in it for support. Nice and cheap but don't forget to ad a drain fitting.
I'm going to build plasma cutter pretty much like this and make it so it sets on my welding table with the shallow water pan on the table top. That way I can hang it on the wall when I'm not using it. Great video super detailed just the way I like it.
The noise you are experiencing is due to the plasma cutter as you stated earlier. Also, you stated that you weren't going to add a grounding rod in your garage. I used to do a lot of commercial wiring and what I would recommend is installing the grounding rod 6' away from the outside of your garage. And run the grounding (solid #4 copper wire) into your garage to a copper bus mounted to your garage wall. Then attached the ground from your plasma cutter to the copper bus. Look this up to verify my findings. I had an old stick welder that would inject high noise into the 220V line in my garage, and then through the whole house. Pissed the wife off something fierce. Good luck!
An excellent video. Information density is high, i like it, great signal to noise ratio. I started watching for your mill conversion with servos (doing the same) and stayed for the plasma, subscribed. And a butter licking dog! Lol
High signal to noise videos. I like that! I’m glad you are enjoying the content
came for the plasma cutter, stayed for the music
FANTASTIC! Thx for putting in all the obvious effort/hard work (on machine, and vid). Have been wanting to get into plasma cutting for a while. This vid is packed w/ valuable practical, and theoretical info. Great stuff. Thx, again. And, keep up the great work! P.S. I'm a regular F360 user (even teach it), so I really appreciate the F360 section at the end of the vid.
Noise mitigation
Easy - have a separate cord that just connect outlet ground to the water box. Have your power supply plugged into a filtering power string and the box connected directly to the ground of your outlet (possibly a plug where only the ground is connected). Also separate power supply from frame with an insulator (e.g. mount to wood mounted to frame)
Medium - some power supplies have dc- connected to AC ground. This can be tested with a multimeter with everything unplugged measuring resistance between negative terminal and ground terminal of power supply. If there is a connection get a better power supply (I think meanwell have isolation, based on online diagram).
Hard - what you really need to do is isolate the ground of the processor from the ground of everything else, which is something that would have to be in your controller. A 5v dc-dc isolator (b0505S-1wr20) is a couple bucks used in CAN bus electronics. But you probably can't do that reasonably.
Nice video - well organized and you are a good speaker.
@30m -- You show how you used those splicing connectors - I call them 'slice and dice connectors', as they often cut not only through the insulation but all a portion of the individual wires.
If you remove your splice and inspect, you will see what I mean. And these days companies put the MINIMUM copper gauge they can get away with (or less), so every strand counts.
Those connectors are convenient - but for reliability, soldering the connections is always preferable. For example carefully removing a ring of insulation, wrapping the splice of wires around a few times, soldering in and then either (a) encapsulate in epoxy, or (b) fold back with other wires and slide over shrink tubing.
Great tutorial! I can understand what you're saying. And your mics are good quality, too.
Excellent video, thanks a lot sharing it with all of us ! I am thinking building a Plasma CNC cutter since one year and watched tens of youtube videos on that topic. I discover openbuilds with your video and actually, it makes me changing all my initial plans... You brings each key principle of such a project with a very nice structure and simple words. I will watch it one, two or maybe more times ;-)
You will want a slight curve in your water pan slats.. less chance of stuff wobbling around and falling inbetween
Faraday Cage (Put the controller in a steal grounded box) and insulate the box from the frame. Then a LISN for your power.
I was going to sugest something similar, like maybe wraping the controller box in aluminium foil and see if it makes any difference
Absolutely love it! To help you lead screw last longer you can add a dry lubricant as it does not bind with dust and other particles in the warehouse environment and lubes. I have seen these screw painted with a dry lubricant as well, however, I do not know what the process is. Nevertheless fricken awesome dude, you damn well read my mind. Just got to figure out where I can put it lol.
Appreciate the lubrication advice!
F****** awesome tutorial, very informative and well structured....Prob one of the best tut i have watched on youtube. Wel done, always excited when i get to watch your stuff. Keep it up
You deserve so many more subs for these videos mate!
The best tutorial I have ever seen! wow
It always gets my goat when I see rubber/plastic/synthetic in a hot environment. I am referring to the wheels, primarily, as they are part of the tolerance of the cut. Good enough for woodworking, where the original CNC was used as a routing table. It just needs some attention for using in a hot dirty environment. Nice build though, keep up the good work.
Hi Sir, I am fully new for CNC plasma , | have set a CNC plasma after start to work then CNC X ,Y Z are vibrating ,when Plasma switch off then vibrating is off. For vibrating what to do solved this issue , Please suggest me .
There are plenty of easy to print heat resistant filaments out there. Annealed PLA is pretty awesome but there are polycarbonate and nylon blends that have desirable properties that can be printed on a relatively ordinary printer. Overture easy Nylon and Polylite PC mainly come to mind but there are others. ABS is a very good option for building mounts, brackets or other structural parts, it's fairly heat resistant, it doesn't deform as bad or has a tendency to crack over time like PLA or PETG does. Then there is ASA which is very similar to ABS but is more UV resistant, and assuming it doesn't go above 100C would probably be perfect for a mount.
Insulate the wires with aluminum foil then wrap them with an insulating tape. I work on a large industrial table and our omnic wires that control the cut sense are insulated with a foil then another plastic layer. It might work with your setup. We also have the wire looped 3 times around and inside those little magnet blocks instead of just the single line going through it. I dont know if any of this will help you but its worth a try. Our magnet blocks are bigger also.
Hey, it would be really great to get a follow up video of the cnc mill, maybe show us some cutting footage and talk about how it’s working out?
Really nice work on the plasma table too!
Stay tuned. Definitely more CNC mill content coming soon (not the next video but the video after).
A couple of quick updates, I’m using the ER tormach tool holding system for the R8 spindle, which has been great.
I also switched to the Hallmark ITTP probe which has been way more reliable than my previous probe.
I have mostly been buying tools and sharpening my skills over the past 6 months. Let me tell you buying and converting the mill is not the most expensive part... the amount of money that I have invested in tool holders and end mills is way higher than I thought. Definitely an expensive hobby.
Still very happy with my purchase. It’s crazy the different parts I can churn out of my garage between the plasma cutter and the mill.
Absolutely great and clean tutorial! Thanks 👍
This dude looks like a mixture of styropyro and Carl Sagan. Very cool projects
Plasma reaction produces high amounts of oxone, ventilation and filtration is necessary if good health is imperative.
In Xerox we add Oxone filters in the machines since we use plasma in way to charge the paper.
Ferrite cores ferrite cores and lastly about 6 turns around ferrite cores the high frequency is traveling along your cables do to skin affect as in all wires including coax
All you need is a sheet metal brake and a welder to custom fabricate your own pan. My dad was in HVAC, and remember him custom fabricating his own in the 32" x 40" range.
Just go with a hypertherm power max……no electrical noise to shut down computers
The biggest thing is grounds everything needs to be grounded ….everything you need a grounded rod in the ground close to the machine outside
Large copper ground coming into the building where the plasma table is located
Hypertherm sell a machine torch
When I built my open build ox table years ago I tried a Chinese plasma table a simadra 50 amp I’m still using it for hand cutting
That little $300 plasma is bad ass
That being said nothing compares to hypertherm
Nice video thanks for sharing
Totally awesome video. I want to build one of these. I can hardly wait.
Love how at around 17:05 the way the camera is positioned, it looks like the cutter/z axis is just getting bigger as it otherwise stays in the same place onscreen
Instructions unclear, I've been plasma cutting every single piece of metal I see and I can't stop.
I can relate
Wow, thanks for a great vid Dr. D-Flo 👍
Salutare din Romania! Esti tare man!
With regard to the noise issue, there are two ways to induce noise into a cable: Electrostatically i.e. capacitively and magnetically. The insulating of the table from the work piece reduces the electrostatic portion, but the magnetic part is made up of a loop which is bounded by your cutting current cable and your grounding current cable. The greater the area enclosed by the separation of these two cables the greater the inductance and thereby magnetic coupling to other devices cables. It also makes the electrostatic worse because the ground cable becomes more inductive, allowing the workpiece to radiate electrostatically as well. To reduce the inductance run the ground and the cutter cable as close to one another as possible for as long as possible(their magnetic fields will tend to cancel one another). Only let the ground diverge from the cutter current cable for as short a length as possible to connect to the workpiece. It will massively reduce the inductance and that means that the ground cable and workpiece will act more like a ground. Hope this helps.
A great project! Well presented.
A small tip: Use ferrite rings on electronics :)
THIS...is the pinnacle of instructional video. Thank you Dr. D-Flo for the impeccable presentation! You have my thumbs and sub!
Very useful your creation, it has inspired me to get one by my self
If you're still curious about a possible solution to the emi with the first
Plasma cutter, check out this. CCW®
Armored Thermocouple, Single Pair, Overall Shield. They say it has "emi performance". I'm not sure if this is the same type of armored cable our data center uses, but if we're using something of the sort to protect it from solar flares; maybe it'll work for you. You would probably would need a faraday cage around the black box with special connectors for the wires also and maybe even all possible entry points. That's starting to sound more expensive than the new cutter.
Regarding grounding in your garage. I see you doing a whole lot of work setting up your plasma machine, and buying yet a second, expensive plasma driver. You are avoiding installing a ground rod in your garage, which is SO easy, and SO affordable. Your video: I am witnessing a talented geek avoiding a little primitive labor! Get yourself a Milwaukee SDS hammer drill, a concrete bit with a slightly larger diameter than the copper jacketed steel ground rod, the ground rod, drill a hole through your slab in a convenient spot along the wall, and use a small sledge hammer to drive the ground rod into the ground under your garage’s slab. If you buy an 8 or 10 foot ground rod, cut it down to below your ceiling height if necessary, get on a step ladder and pound away. The pounding will take you two minutes. Then connect your table to the rod. Comments, anyone?
Long video with much useful information
Thanks 🙏🏼
What's the budget for everything Sir?
You should make a cage anywhere possible which should aid somewhat at keeping RF frequencies at bay however your main issue you are having here is that when a spark is made you get a pulse of EM radiating outward from that pulse. When the pulse stops the EM field collapses which results in it inducing currents in anything conductive in its field. Do this super rapidly and what you get is electromagnetic frequencies in the RF range pulsing through conductive materials in the field around the arc. Normally one would shield using a faraday cage but in this case it is not that simple really. It is likely the Arc the cutter is using is a purposefully created RF frequency making your problem a bit worse honestly. I recommend grounding everything with chokes everywhere, more importantly of a variety of different sizes. If you can find out a rough range for the frequency that your cutters circuit is using it would help you fine tune what chokes you need but it is best if you have chokes that do not resonate with the circuit so that as a magnetic field is pulsed into the choke its collapsing field counters that of the circuit.
The Chokes will help anything that is forced to be in the circuit with the cutter or at least close but without a doubt you should place metal mesh around your electronic so that EM fields can not get into them. Perhaps a full on metal box around your micro controller and camera you are filming with to block as much RF as humanly possible.
0:02 i can see that lead screw jumping up/down bcs it's too thin for that length :)
When you start the torch, it will splash water up and conduct thereby bypassing your insulation. Try putting a sheet of acrylic under the pan and then you can connect the ground clamp to the pan and this isolates the pan, material rest, and the material from the frame. Also the problem of air delivery can be fixed with an auxiliary air tank and a regulator on the output. More quantity can compensate for consistent delivery.
i work with ZM sheet metal inc, and i can get you a drain pan cheaper and bigger than that what you got.
not costing thousand like you said. i enjoy watching your video cuz youre so smart you built your own machine wow. i am a vicon plasma machine operator and the reason why i came across your video is because my team are using the wrong tip burner with the machine causing it to burn out in just 4 days. i was hoping to get some suggestions if this is normal or should we use some other tip much stronger?
1) Use the earth from your garage mains electrical system to earth your table, use some nice thick cable.
2) Use twisted pair for your signal wires.
3) Use a braided shield over those signal cables (the sort of braid you get in coaxial cable, in fact you can strip some coaxial if you have any to pull the braid out and use it), grounded to your 24v power supply gorund, at ONE END OF THE BRAID ONLY, insulate the other end from anything else.
4) Move your blackbox away from the cutting area if you can.
5) Make your motor cable runs messy, straight neat cables pick up crosstalk very nicely, so within the cable tracks, make sure things are all a bit higgldy piggldy and mixed up. I know it'll mess with you, and feel wrong, but believe me one of the best ways to avoid cross talk and interferance on cables is to have them in one huge knotted mess, it stops big EM fields from forming properly.
6) Look at your configuration and think "earth loops" - multiple paths from a given point to the same earth are bad, remove as many as you can. Insulate your motors from the frame if you can.
7) Insulate the water table from your frame, not your work piece from the table.
8) Dont use T taps, there are way better options out there. Now sit in the corner and think on your sins. :-)
*Your sins are absolved for sharing your hard work with us.
Fingers crossed those steps will make your table useable.
Thanks a lot. Now I want a plasma cutter and a cnc router.
The thermal dynamics is a good machine, however if wanting to stay with a cheaper cutter there are many examples of machines similar to your first , that have pilot arc. I use a ltp5000 which is an inexpensive pilot arc plasma. I run the torch lead in the same cable chain as the stepper cables and it works with no noise issues on my diy cnc plasma.
Most of these use a SG-55 or AG-60 torch. There are cheap straight versions of these torches.
You are using a printed clip to hold your slats into your water tank. Cut the slats narrower and shorter with a little bit more material to space them further from the tank sides, then use a non-conductive spacer to isolate them from the tank bottom. This way you can place your parts directly to your slate and do away with the wood isolators. Also isolate the tank from the frame.
Great video! Have you seen precious plastic shredder? You should be able to build one with this machine, right?
No other words...ur F%^^%$ awesome....best plasma diy video i have seen, and i have alot
I would suggest using 0.1 microfarad disc ceramic capacitors across any leads going into the microcontroller. If you have a pair of wires that go out to a switch or something just put the capacitor across the input to the microcontroller otherwise you can run the capacitor leg with one to ground IE frame and then the other one to your input. The correct term for this is bypassing and it will shunt any high frequency AC electrical noise to the common ground for the machine.
You can also get a bigger ferrite donut like a ft-240-43 toroid ferrite core and wrap the leads of concern several times maybe even up to 20 times if you have the wire length through that core and it will impart enough inductive reactants to that system to effectively choke off any high frequency currents going into the microcontroller. You might also be able to do the same thing with your work clamp lead and if you have a long enough plasma torch and a big enough ferrite core you could even wrap those conductors several times through a ferrite core in order to disrupt that circuit from a high frequency noise perspective.
For more information look at just about any ham radio handbook or a specifically the ARRL amateur radio handbook for more rfi/emi solutions.
Your other concern about properly grounding the machine might be able to be resolved by buying some wide copper strip or someone in copper braid from Amazon run this wide conductor from the frame of the machine tied into the frame of the plasma cutter through the shortest and widest lead possible, and then run another heavy strap or 1 in copper wire braid from the frame of the plasma cutter directly to the breaker panel behind your machine. Ideally you would tie it into the ground bus bar however you could also clean the paint off of the frame of the cabinet and secure it with a nut a bolt and a set screw type terminal. Wide and flat conductors are required due to a phenomenon called The skin effect whereby the higher the frequency of an ac voltage or current it uses a smaller and smaller cross-section of any given conductor sometimes as low as only a few thousands of an inch. Do this phenomenon a 1 inch copper or aluminum pipe for a grinding bus bar is more effective than a wire with the same cross section. Of course you could also use a strip that is 3.14 in wide to get the same result. I wish you the best of luck if I can help anybody out Google my business name and give me a call I'll be happy to help you out with issues like this.
this is absolutely fantastic build ....some plasma cutters put some kind of leather or a brush or something around the cutting head to reduce splash !!! that thing splashed water all over the place and that cant be good for the bearings and bolts and stuff you can see it in the plasma cutter of colin furze ......also i think you should add more water coz there is so much fumes coming from underneath the work piece and the thermal mass of the water you have will heat up fast and evaporate ...more thermal mass will surely help
im sure you will bow our minds off in the next video ...keep up the good work
Totally agree with all your points. I will incorporate these solutions into my next plasma cutter video. Cheers!
you can also twist your dc lines from your e-box to create a small capacitance. Also, when using your chokes on your lines, make a loop in your lines then clamp your chokes on the double part of the line. On top of all that, you can used braided shielding on all your power and ground lines, and take that to chasis ground. Good golly, if all that doesn't do it, you'll have to do something with the source/head. I work with RF and dc in close proximity all the time. Those are the basics without using active circuitry to cancel signals. Do you have a scope to see the noise?
Nice job , weld done , Im building CNC plasma 2.4mx1.5m , i cant wait to get done
stainless Steel Braided Sleeving works as a good EMI shield if you ground one end of it. I usually use plumbers solder, paste rosin and map gas to make one end solid and drillable. I will then cut the sleave to make it so I can run the cable through. Also flat fires radiate only on the sides vs round wires that radiate omnidirectional.
Recommendation, insulate the water table from the machine fram, print PLA or PC spacers that separate it from the frame itself and you should be more capable of using AC start on that plasma torch, that way you can also just ground the water table to the Plasma generator rather than reply on a clamp to the work piece.
I recommend also adding a drain port to the water table
I'm working on the drain port! Adding a welder here shortly to the shop.
Excellent video, very thorough.
Great video! How did the system hold up to time? Did the torch holder survive?
Stellar work David!
Fantastic contribution to the world
I was curious about the long cuts you make making the fire-pit. Was the dross/cut quality as good as you were hoping for and did the air supply/duty cycle hold up so you didn’t need to take rest breaks to either let the plasma cutter cool or the compressor catch up by filling the tank.
Really good video. Not just an excellent tutorial on building the CNC but also on plasma-cutter selection.
Looking forward to your future endeavors.
Cheers!
def makes me wanna build something like this !! awesome video
David, I have a question for you. Since the water pan, slats and job material sit directly on the frame extrusions and the ground clamp is connected to the work material, do you think that insulating the water pan from the frame would help with EMI? I recently purchased Bestarc 50 plasma cutter, it has a pilot arc start and the euro style torch connections but is not LF. I can only afford one plasma cutter and decided to go the cnc route after I purchased the Bestarc. Thanks so much for your content..