Plasma center punching

[acourtjester]

Here is a write up on a procedure I have used to make center punch dimples using a DXF file and plasma.

Dimple Operations.zip

DSCN3177 aa.jpg

DSCN3182.JPG

[acourtjester]

videos of the action

[djreiswig]

Your luck must be better than mine.
I hear guys talking about doing all of the pierces on a sheet and switching consumables before cutting. My table works great most of the time, but if I tried to do this I would end up messing something up and wasting a bunch of metal. I have good luck completing one part before moving on to the next. Then if something messes up I can usually just nudge things around and not have a bunch of useless parts.

[acourtjester]

Ah the trick is I don't change consumables, the pause is just to change the cut amps on the plasma. I even used this process to make a template for hole making using a fine cut nozzle and 18 Ga steel. I positioned the holes with the CAD drawing and ran the punch section to make very small holes in the steel, then clamped it to an aluminum plate for marking and drilling for linear bearing mounting. This just shows the holes but for the actual template I drew the dimensions of the aluminum plate to be cut from the steel plate to give the actual positions on the plate.

center punch holes.JPG

[SegoMan DeSigns]

Thanks for the share, It will be a great tool until I get the air scribe & drill mounted.

[djreiswig]

Yes, but if you make punches all across the sheet and for some reason one of your cuts messes up, that whole area is scrap. I finish one part before starting on the next, so if one of my cuts messes up I can nudge the other parts around to try and utilize some of that material instead of scrapping the whole area.
So, I would set it up to punch one part and then cut that part before moving on to the next set of punches.

[robertspark]

I've not done this ....

but have you considered maybe homing your machine before you use it and maybe welding some say left and bottom of the table (X- and Y-) alignment tabs so that when you lay a sheet on the table it is always aligned from the same place that way if the cut messes up or the power trips you can rehome and should be good to go to do a rerun of the gcode.

[acourtjester]

I use these to start the drilling processor to get past the plasma hardened of the steel

center drill.JPG

[djreiswig]

robertspark
I'm saying if I get a tip up or something crashes the torch and wrecks the part before it is completely cut out, I might be able to slide the other parts into the uncut are of the bad part and reclaim some of the material. If I already had a bunch of punch marks all over a sheet I couldn't do this.
I wouldn't ever punch several parts at once anyway, because with my table I see no benefit. I've got the ability to adjust amps from gcode so I would just raise and lower the amps automatically between punching and cutting.
It seems to be working good for acourtjester, but his luck is better than mine.