So i just bought a crossfire and found this video (3 years later lol). Wanted to say thanks for making the STL's available on thingiverse- going to print them right now and finally clean up my torch cable. You're the man!
Dang it! I found your channel from your F360 videos......ended up watching all of these videos too. Now I just bought a plasma table. They owe you a commission! :)
I like the 3d printed cable strain reliefs. When possible, I prefer to have screw heads recessed into the 3d print to minimize snagging opportunities. Very excellent finishing touches on this project.
Nice job! For the 'new X' floating cable, you could get some 'spiral tubing'... It is usually used to gather cables together but it also serves as a stiffener...
Yeah...I'm not sure if it's needed. The cable is soft, and it's well-supported at both ends now, so it should just flex along without trouble. I'll keep an eye on it.
Nice work (as usual). I always find myself finding new projects before the previous one is finished. Latest thing I managed to do was to find out that 3mm (1/8" or so) sheet of steel [or other materials] fits UNDER the fence at the back of my chop-saw. Which is rather annoying, and it's such a tight fit that it actually bent the fence - but also pushed my material under it. So I'm now paused on the OTHER project to make a new fence for the saw, from some slightly sturdier piece of aluminium [and having less gap under the fence, so thin material doesn't go under it!]
I worked for a software company that had a comb binder for creating product manuals and such. There was a box of huge combs that could bind hundreds of pages, far more than we would ever need to bind. I repurposed them by using double-sided foam tape to attach them under the tables in our computer lab (you could also use hotmelt glue). It got the cables up off the floor and was super inexpensive for an application where the cables would ultimately be out of sight anyway.
I've had to deal with far too many cable tie pads 'secured' with double sided tape, where the weight of the cabling just pulled them off over time. I don't trust tape adhesives to not turn into goo (electrical tape) or powder (duct tape). For my own use, I'll do the work for a screw or bolt to hold things fighting gravity.
Great video. I use the same orientation as you now do. I think I am going to try to find some sheet metal cutting project so I can run my torch. I learned about using borax in the water too late and now my water bed is rusty.
Lots of people do things this way. Personally, I don't like the look, and find it frustrating when it comes time to make changes later. Changing one wire that runs the length of a bundle requires cutting off all the zip ties and re-doing everything.
Designing and 3D printing a new torch with the lead going straight up would also be a nice project :-) But it might of course be that it would get too hot.
+1 on the decision to stay on the shot with your face in reflection on the screen narrating. Very Avant guard' I enjoy every video. Thanks for making the effort.
I was a little surprised you reached for connectors and wire to reverse the axes rather than some config settings in the control program. I guess there might not be any in a packaged solution. The only drawback I see is that you now have the plasma gun semi-permanently attached to the table, and have to cut zip ties to use it free-standing. I think I might have used a Velcro wire wrap instead to do the bracket attachment. I think you can get them in the hardware store these days. They became incredibly common in the theater for cable management a couple decades ago.
@@Clough42 I wilton has a good point on the cable being attached to the motor. When the consumables go on mine, I stop the machine, pull the red torch holder off the machine entirely, fix the consumable, and re-mount. It might be cool to make this a magnet 3d printed mount so you can easily take it off and put it back on without having to re-home the machine.
Another way of wire management on your monitor, use a tube that fits over the square tube that holds the monitor up. It could be round tube square tube rectangle, even PVC and then you could run your wires inside of it, it would give you a cleaner look easier to clean and less likely to get a spark on it.
Also sounds like a lot more work. And unless the tube is very large, it would require disassembling the monitor mount and pulling it out of the leg to get the cable ends through it.
If you're looking for projects, I'd love to see you add a Z-axis scale to your lathe and use that to upgrade the ELS so you can replace the threading dial with a "start the thread when it comes around" pushbutton that would work for either inch or metric threads (or tie into the existing scale somehow if you already have a DRO; I can't remember if you do.)
@@Clough42 Not really. My lathe doesn't have a separate drive mechanism for the power cross slide, so full CNC would be a huge project for me, and I suspect for others as well. I just find the full-manual method of cutting metric threads with an imperial leadscrew or vice-versa to be cumbersome and error-prone, and it seems to me that the only thing the ELS needs to eliminate the need for the threading dial (or, in the mixed system case, the nonexistent threading dial) is an idea of the carriage position. It would also let you set a stop for power-feed and threading operations, but it falls far short of full CNC.
Is there potential for some parts to now print ‘upside down’ with the reversal of the stepper? Ie, with the dross on the up side? Oh also, while I’m here - really looking forward to you revisiting the ELS and making V2.0 - I’m really enjoying my lathe now ;-)
No. The parts will cut the same. If you rotate the coordinate system 90 degrees, one axis always has to be reversed. You are, however, the first person to recognize that even if the parts were reversed, they would just have the dross on the other side.
A considerable number of commercial Laser cutting centers screw up matching the axis orientation on the operator display to the actual axes. The displays typically use a view from the long side of the machine, but the operator display is on the short side where the doors for access are. So, everything is rotated 90 degrees. Less than ideal when you're on your 5th 12 hour day that week, and one of the nest files to run is a square aspect ratio. Not an issue until it happens there is a grain restriction. Don't ask me how I know.
I love you videos, great job on all the mods. Just out of curiosity what is the over all height and width and length of the table? If I am not mistaken you purchased the 33" upgrade. I am looking to purchase one myself but I am very space limited.
I bought the extended Y (now X) axis version. The only difference is that the rail and motor stick out further on one end, and I can easily tuck this in behind something when storing the table.
Always enjoy your videos. Also brilliant way to think how to manage your cable,but l hope you don't use zip ties on the torch housing , cause you could reduce air needed the torch to work properly just hint not judge anything try use some PVC on that one l suppose will handle the pressure also keep it clean just suggestion also your way not so bad but in long term could make maybe some issue on torch air pressure at the parts specially at thick plates
Some nice solutions there. Just one question, what is the heat tolerance of the 3D printed parts considering that the stepper motors can easily operate at up to 80deg C in normal use?
I'm primarily using an Ohio Power Bar in a low-bar position, since that's what will be used at USAPL meets. I also have a safety squat bar that I use for accessory work. It moves the weight forward to somewhere between a high bar and front squat, so it works the muscles differently and adds variety and a little less specificity. I had some stiffness and discomfort in my left shoulder for a few weeks, but I did some stretching with a resistance band before squatting and limited it to two days a week for a little while, and that has resolved completely.
Are you going to get a machine torch,or are you good with what came with the plasma? I'm going to purchase this same table,just your thoughts. Maybe keep that torch if you need to use the plasma conventionally.
For the stepper cable mount-wouldn‘t it be preferential to put some venting holes/slots in the plate? I don‘t know about this application, but in my 3D printers, the steppers always end up getting pretty warm, and can do with as much ventilation as possible, if not even a small, slow moving fan.
So, maybe dumb question, but when you swapped the motor connections and directions around you *did* correct the limit switches as well, right? Would hate for the machine to crash itself because of that.
Yes. I ordered a couple. The stock x motor cable is too short and permanently attached to the motor, so that would be kind of a pain, and one large enough to handle the torch lead without issue adds a lot of load to the axis as it moves. I decided it wasn't worth it.
You could probably make it work if you lengthened the cable. For the moving axis on the arm, a chain large enough to carry the torch cable looked comical in relation to the lightweight arm.
Since the table has no limit switches, is the canned software OK with swapping the (unequal length) X- and Y-axes ? Will it try to overrun one and not reach the end of the other now ? Or are the soft limits adjustable enough to compensate ?
Congrats on finishing a project! I have yet to do that (I've just started putting my workshop together, so all of it is still WIP). Regarding swapping your axes around, did you confirm that the machine still correctly moves to the home positions (when homing it) on the axes?
When you reversed to rotation direction on axis without telling the software, wouldn't that result in mirrored parts? I understand it's a 2D part, but still...
Nope. Because I also rotated the coordinate system 90 degrees by swapping the motors. If I hadn't reversed the direction of one motor, it would have reversed the parts.
@@Clough42 You are right. After switching the axis wires it was going the wrong way, which was the whole point of changing the phases. I don't know why I suddenly got the idea of it being a mirror image of the part.
Not sure what motor driver it's using, but newer ones can detect the current spike of a crash and they use that for homing. The Prusa i3 MK3S 3D printer does this, for example. I don't think you'd want to do this on your industrial CNC machine, but it seems appropriate for the speeds and feeds and moving mass of something like a 3D printer and MAYBE a plasma cutter.
Yeah, not really needed. The moving mass is small, and crashes don't really damage anything. The only time I've even crashed the machine was just by being dumb with the hand controls.
@@Clough42 homing switches give a convinience of soft limits, so that you can never crash the machine. I hate to crash my machine (1.5x3 m table, but not too fast). But, yeah, for something small and light not critical at all. Return to home function also not really needed for such small table.
@@Clough42 new project ? ;) I added limit switches on my Sherline mill ( i am playin in sand box and don't want to leave it ) , > some holes to drill, some tap to make, then microswitches and screws ... about half day . but If the software manage them on your machine
