Gorilla Machines

[SS 45]

Hello,
Just wandering if anyone out there owns or has ever heard of Gorilla machines plasma tables? Its a small business out of Ashville, NC. Just curious for some input on the quality of their machines.

[Bobkovacs]

I looked at buying one of his machines last year when he was just selling on Craigslist and didn't have the company name. Seemed decent for the price, but didn't have a 4x8 at the time, and I was Leary about the whole Craigslist thing. He's raised his price $1,000 since, and still doesn't have a 4x8.

[little blue choo]

Looking at their website the first thing I notice is they are using a hand torch on their table and it doesn't seem to have any type of break away incase the torch dives or gets caught on a tip up. Their website has very little info on their table and no info at all on the software included, the operating system, the type of motors or drives used and noting on the ACCURACY of their table. Their website has a page for support but when you click on it you get a message (COMING SOON). I don't think they know where they are, their web site say's they are in Asheville NC and also gives their address as Sylva NC which is about 50 miles west of Asheville. I would want to know a lot more about their table before purchasing one.

Rick

[tcaudle]

You are going to see a surge of new sources for Plasma Tables. It happens every time the economy picks up and the demand for tables increases. It looks like a great way to make some money. It's one thing to build the mechanics and slap some electronics on it then take some videos of it cutting. The biggest single expense of a table provider is support. It the profit is not there for overhead and personnel then as the vendor gets more tables in the field support tends to fall off. The landscape is littered with orphan CNC Plasma tables. You cannot tell much from a website and even a video of cutting flat thicker metal. Its rather unfortunate that they chose that name because its the same one of a now out-of-business router table vendor from several years ago. If the first item on your list is price then perhaps building your own Plasma Table might be an option and be your own first level of support. Nothing is more frustrating than spending a bunch of money on a machine and then having to work on it or even upgrade it to be able to do decent cuts. Most startups do not set out to defraud a buyer. Either out of ignorance or circumstance, the chances of being in business 3 to 5 years from now is rather slim.

[tdg0830]

I just purchased one these tables. They are now calling themselves ArcForge. There website is thearcforge.com. I’m hoping someone else made the mistake of purchasing from these guys and can send me a copy of their software. The computer that came with the table has gone belly up and “tech support” aka Issac Norris won’t answer the phone.

[acourtjester]

That sucks I bet the change their name again to sucker in more people.
On a different note if you have the knowledge you may look at removing the hard drive and installing it in another PC. Not as the system drive but a second drive. If it works you can then copy the software and then copy it to a replacement PC. You may be able to use a USB memory stick to make the transfer.

[bc56845]

I'm a high school instructor and bought one of the Gorilla Tables for our program (we're local to him). Our computer also crashed and we lost all of the software. I did find a backup copy of mach3 and sheetcam that I had saved on a USB drive, but I don't know enough about the system to get it working again. All of his configurations in MACH3 seem to be gone in the copy I have. I was able to get ahold of him not long after it happened and he said he would get us another computer, but then it seemed like he blocked my number. Now his number belongs to someone else. I had given up until I found the flash drive, so we got the table back out and I'm going to try to figure it out.

[vwefelix]

I just purchased one these tables. They are now calling themselves ArcForge. There website is thearcforge.com. I’m hoping someone else made the mistake of purchasing from these guys and can send me a copy of their software. The computer that came with the table has gone belly up and “tech support” aka Issac Norris won’t answer the phone.

I am someone else that made the mistake of purchasing a plasma table from arcforge, from what I can tell they are using a version of Mach3 that has some overlays to make it "arcforge". I have still not been able to get our machine to cut much at all, tech support is non-existent, no phone to call, no emails answered. If you want a copy of the files I have on my laptop, send me a message here and I can email them to you.

Hope that helps,
Dave

[bc56845]

Well I got my mach3 set up enough to get my table to move in the x axis, but its binding in the Y, only one motor seems to be running. Also Can't get Z to work. Could anyone with a gorilla machines setup send me a screen shot of the ports and pins setup on Mach3? I assume that's my problem. Maybe the arcforge is the same setup if Chris built both machines?
Thanks,
Ben

[acourtjester]

Here are a few things to help you along, when a manufacturer creates another screen set you can change it back to the normal Mach 3s so you can see standard screens and their info. Along the top of the page are drop down menus one being "View" click on it, a drop down will appear. One of the selections is "load screens" this will go to the Mach 3 folder and you will find other screen sets to pick from (hopefully there are ones). If there is a plasma click on it, the screen will go blank for about 5 seconds and a new screen will appear on the monitor. If it shows like the one attached that is a normal one and the standard setup can be done. When you see the screen sets when in the Mach 3 folder copy their names one should be the one they created, you can redo the above steps to get back to the one they created if you want. We can work on getting things set up with a normal Mach 3 screen.

screen view.JPG

screen view 2.JPG

screen view 3.JPG

[bc56845]

Ok, I did that. There was a plasma file there, and my screen does look exactly like the one you posted.

[acourtjester]

Ok now others can help as the screens and info is in their normal location. the attached screenshots show the motor output page this is where you need to put the pin location for the different axis motors. If you have 4 motors you may need to also fill in the A axis pins locations. To test the motors operations after any changes you can use the keyboard to make the motors move. Understand the DROs will show movement even if there is not table connected. The 4 arrow keys will move the X and Y axis (up arrow with move y in a positive direction and the right arrow with move the X in a positive direction) and the page up and page down will move the Z axis. Look at the attached diagram as to the axis orientations as some look at them differently (both are correct).

axis direction.jpg

switch pos.jpg

ports and pins for normal BOB board AA.jpg

[bc56845]

ok, I forgot about page up/down for Z. X and Z both work, but Z is backwards, page up takes the machine down. Not sure if that matters? Only One of the Y axis motors works. I assume this is because it has 4 motors, so I have the A axis in there wrong? I'm sorry if I sound like I have no idea what I'm doing, it's because I don't. I'm actually an Auto Mechanics Teacher, we just have this table for our drafting students and welding students to work together on. I just happen to be the only teacher here that has any experience with a plasma table. We have a Lincoln torchmate at my summer job, so I've used it a little.

[acourtjester]

Progress you can easily change the direction of an axis, there are 2 ways to reverse an axis. Change red X to green check or vice versa. Look at the 2 attached screenshots of where to do this, only one is needed. But you need to test after so the table moves correctly, you want the Z to move up when clicking on the page up arrow, so try one then the other to get that to happen. To get the A axis to move with the Y (both motors)you will need to slave A to Y as shown in the attached image.
You may need to reverse the A direction as it will turn the opposite to the Y. Be sure that there are pin names in the motor output page like the others for the A axis. Now the disclaimer I have never used 2 motors for one axis (slaved) so I cannot say if after you have slaved them pushing the keyboard keys will move both. It may be better to enter a move command in the MDI like G1 Y.5 F10 (G1 is controlled speed {F10} and G1.5 should move it .5")
don't have it at the end of travel incase it move the wrong direction at first (testing).

reverse 1.JPG

reverse 2.JPG

reverse 3.JPG

[bc56845]

Ok, I reversed Z. That worked, I slaved the A axis to the Y, but still only one motor runs in the Y direction and it binds. could the motor output pin#s for the A axis just be wrong? If I take apart the controller on the table can I follow the wires from the A axis motor to the controller to see what Pin# to put into the motor outputs chart? Is that how that works? will it just be labeled with Pin#s?

[acourtjester]

Yes if you look at the image above for the motors, you will need to have the Amotor enabled (green check) and the step and dir pin number entered. Also the step and dir port as port one as the others, Unless for some reason yours if different (but most likely port 1). look between the BOB board and the driver, the number will be on the BOB (hopefully) they should be like P14 but some BOB don't label the pins just XS or XD you may just find AS and AD. YOu may need to post an image of the BOB so I can see if I can find a manual to ID the pins numbers.
Now by binding do you mean like the Y move a short distance and the table binds because the other motor is not turning. That would be normal as the table is setup for 2 motor drive on the Y axis, and only one drive and it gets crooked.

[bc56845]

Yeah, it moves a short distance and binds because the other motor is not turning. Ok, I'll take it apart tomorrow and look at the pins when I'm back at the school.
Thanks a lot!

[bc56845]

Ok, I took the box apart and it was pins 8 and 9 for A axis, which is what I had entered, but then I realized I still had a zero for the Ports on the motor output page. Changed it to port 1 and it started working. So now I can jog the table in the correct direction for X, Y, and Z. I think I need to work on the homing/soft limits screen and the motor tuning screen next? The motors will try to continue to run off the table if you hold down the direction key and it's not traveling the correct distance. I haven't even tried to get it to fire the torch yet. I just became a paying member, will I be able to post pictures once that goes through?

[bc56845]

I found another thread about motor tuning and found the Settings page and the "set steps per unit" axis calibration. Should I just do this or do I also need to change anything on the motor tuning and setup page?

[acourtjester]

If you do the motor tune with Mach's steps per routine it makes the changes to the setup page when you answer yes to the acceptance question.
This is a very simple way to do the motor tune, just start with a short distance and increase for about 3 times to a max distance. that removes small errors in your measuring. I don't use the soft limits (just me) but I surely use limit switches for safety on both ends of the axis.
Getting close

[IBBruin]

I have a working Gorilla machine, check your inbox.

[bc56845]

Ok, so I had this thing cutting a while ago, but now It's got a couple of problems,
1. It's not probing the material on any new cut files I've created in sheetcam. It's probing it on old cut files from before my computer crashed, although its not probed those files sometimes. Is that a sheetcam setting?
2. all of a sudden it stops at the G code line M03 and just stays there with the torch firing.
Any thoughts?

[djreiswig]

Guessing you're missing the arc okay signal from your plasma cutter.

[acourtjester]

To Probe your post processor needs to have the G31 command for it to look at the probe input, and the probe input pin ID enabled.
And as Djreiswig says the Arc ok for it to move after the pierce, this is also a setting in the input pins.

open down.JPG

open too.JPG

[bc56845]

Ok, I think I've got it all figured out for now. I'm not sure why it wasn't getting the arc ok signal, but after shutting off the plasma cutter overnight and turning it back on this morning that problem went away. I figured out that it was missing the G31 command. There was a custom Gorilla Machines Post processor that I had to load into sheetcam. Luckily I had that file on a flashdrive from the old computer. So for now it seems to be back to being fully funcional. I've learned more about all of this stuff this week than I thought I would ever know! at least when students start using this thing again I'll be more helpful to them than I was before. Thanks for all of the help!