CNC Plasma Table Ventilation...Any Suggestions???

[plasmanewbie]

Anyone have any suggestions on what to use to exhaust the smoke from my plasma table? I have found expensive plasma ventilation systems available but they are overkill for my application. I had no idea my plasma table would make such a mess of my shop. Everything is yellow now!

[FCDL36X7S3]

I use a downdraft system that we built. Keep in mind that air pollution problems are a big factor. I'm currently blowing into the open air which is not good at all. I have a baghouse lined up and we are going to install that this winter.

I installed a duct system under the table, pulling off one end. I have a 5' x 10' table. I installed a 3 hp axial fan with about 4,500 cfm in line with exhaust going out the roof.

A big part of this is that to get proper air velocity over the whole table would take a lot larger fan. To compensate for small sheets, we installed welding curtain on a pipe on the end of the table. We roll it out to cover the unused part of the table. Simple and works good. I have pictures if needed.

I would be open to ideas on a better water table. The air pollution problem is a headache

[plasmanewbie]

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. Pollution restrictions for this type of thing don't exist around here so I could get away with it until my business grew to the piont where I could get an enviro freindly setup.

Your using a larger, more powerful fan than I was thinking so I appreciate your input. I won't waste my time with the 1500 cfm fan I was planning on using. If you have the time to upload some pics that would be very helpful to me and others I am sure.

What type of plasma cutting system do you own? I don't think I could easilly do a water table with mine.

Thanks again for the help! This forum has been a huge help to me!

[FCDL36X7S3]

I don't know how to post a picture on here. Let me know an e-mail and I can send some.

The 1500 cfm would be way too low in my opinion. If you only have a 4' x 4' table that's an air velocity of only 94 feet per minute. If it's a 4' x 8' table it gets down to 47 feet per minute. That's way too low for a capture velocity.

I own a Tracker.

[plasmanewbie]

I uploaded some pictures and art files on this site. I found the "Upload Attachment" tab under the box that you type your post into. Browse for the file and upload it. Once I found the tab it was easy

I own a 4x4 Plasmacam table. What size fan would you suggest?

I would love to own a Tracker but my Plasmacam was cheap and it works. I have the time to sort out the issues so I can live with it for now.

[FCDL36X7S3]

I would look at about 3,000 cfm for your size table. I'm going to attach a picture and see what happens.

[plasmanewbie]

That's great, thanks for the picture. Thank you for all your help I will take your advice and source a 3000 cfm fan. The welding curtain is a fantastic idea. Thanks again.

[Metalworks]

I quickly found the fumes and plasma particles all over the shop, including on ceiling rafters and everything else. Every time I picked up something it would have a fine coating of black soot, not to mention what I was breathing in.

I ended up building a separate room in the shop taking up 8x12 floor space for the 4x8 table. I cut a hole in the side of the exterior shop wall and pushed in a long piece of large diameter pvc pipe near the floor level into the cnc room. I then cut another hole near the top of the ceiling of the cnc room going outside the shop as well. There I installed a large fan-type blower so it would vent outside. I made a simple frame to hold a regular furnace filter and that fits on the side of the blower.

In essence, since the room is totally enclosed, the fan pulls air in from the outside and expels it back outside, so the fumes/smoke/soot never gets back into the shop. It never pulls out valuable heated shop space during the winter.

The room has 2 regular swinging doors at one end that open out so I can load 4' wide material with no problem and then close the doors. I put in a piece of clear acrylic as a "view" window on a side wall and can operate everything outside the room but still have visibility through the acrylic.

When I cut the fan on, it actually sucks the doors closed if I did not close them off completely.

Problem solved! Every so often I change out the furnace filters and sweep up the soot/debris within the room.

[Metal Lee]

I quickly found the fumes and plasma particles all over the shop, including on ceiling rafters and everything else. Every time I picked up something it would have a fine coating of black soot, not to mention what I was breathing in.

I ended up building a separate room in the shop taking up 8x12 floor space for the 4x8 table. I cut a hole in the side of the exterior shop wall and pushed in a long piece of large diameter pvc pipe near the floor level into the cnc room. I then cut another hole near the top of the ceiling of the cnc room going outside the shop as well. There I installed a large fan-type blower so it would vent outside. I made a simple frame to hold a regular furnace filter and that fits on the side of the blower.

In essence, since the room is totally enclosed, the fan pulls air in from the outside and expels it back outside, so the fumes/smoke/soot never gets back into the shop. It never pulls out valuable heated shop space during the winter.

The room has 2 regular swinging doors at one end that open out so I can load 4' wide material with no problem and then close the doors. I put in a piece of clear acrylic as a "view" window on a side wall and can operate everything outside the room but still have visibility through the acrylic.

When I cut the fan on, it actually sucks the doors closed if I did not close them off completely.

Problem solved! Every so often I change out the furnace filters and sweep up the soot/debris within the room.

That sounds like it works well Metal Works, one quick question for you, do the filters reduce the amount of dust exausted to the outside? The reason I ask is that I want to vent my table to the outside but the people that live next to me are about 20ft or so and they have a pool and a hot tub etc, no worries in the winter but the summer may present a problem. The filter thing sounds like a great idea just wondering how much difference it would make. Any input to my situation would be appreciated.

[plain ol Bill]

If your neighbors are within 20 ft. of you and you are venting in their direction they are not going to be happy campers AT ALL. Especially with a pool and hottub. You might be able to install some filtering to catch particulates (black smog crap) but be prepared for a fight.

[Metal Lee]

If your neighbors are within 20 ft. of you and you are venting in their direction they are not going to be happy campers AT ALL. Especially with a pool and hottub. You might be able to install some filtering to catch particulates (black smog crap) but be prepared for a fight.

I have put a water table in and it hase reduced the dust bigtime, just trying to reduce it more.

[jaknel]

Two things. This Is kinda a repeat but to exhaust the table it's really easy especially if it's sitting next to a wall or any where you can run curtains down one or both side's. Just run your curtain's place a fan In the wall it works real well. Or you can build a filter bank and exhaust where ever you want just run duct work. It will act just like a paint both and height really has no effect. That keeps it pretty economical. Two I'm looking at CNC machine's what seams to be a good machine hopefully without a lot of problem's? Undecided on 4x4 or 5x10 table. What kind of money did you spend?

[plasmanewbie]

Thanks for the reply. I ended up doing the fan in the wall type setup and it works very well, my shop and my lungs are loving me!

I spent 10k on a Plasmacam plasma cutting table. Works really well for the money, I wish I had a larger table though. I outgrew the 4x4 table pretty quickly, I think a 4x8 plasma system would be ideal and I would recommend not getting a 4x4.

I have also been looking at buying a new, larger, and more industrialized table and have narrowed it down to either a Torchmate XS or a Dynatorch plasma machine.

Plasmanewbie

[Ironman]

Thanks for the reply. I ended up doing the fan in the wall type setup and it works very well, my shop and my lungs are loving me!

I spent 10k on a Plasmacam plasma cutting table. Works really well for the money, I wish I had a larger table though. I outgrew the 4x4 table pretty quickly, I think a 4x8 plasma system would be ideal and I would recommend not getting a 4x4.

I have also been looking at buying a new, larger, and more industrialized table and have narrowed it down to either a Torchmate XS or a Dynatorch plasma machine.

Plasmanewbie

The one advantage of the Pcam is all the parts are off the shelf, you actually need little from Pcam in replacements. I can email you a parts list with McMaster Carr etc. numbers. Also the steel rail componants, and other angles, are standard at your metal suppliers, so if you have a 8 ft in mind the side rails ar a matter of buying the 1/8" wall tubing and milling a 1/2" slot in it. Of course you can buy them for 500 bucks from Pcam. I was choked till I priced Trackers extruded aluminium ones at 1600 ea.
The gear rack is also available from suppliers off the shelf in 12 ft lengths.
As you may have guessed, I want to go to 8 ft, but I have no room til my new shop is built.

As to the fan, you can lay down cardboard 2x2' squares over the cut out areas of your sheet if you need to gain more airflow.
I use a 1 hp. Tri-Metal 3450 rpm 12" fan that sucks enough air that I never need to cover anything. But at 8ft. I forsee dust problems. So I plan to put a Y in the suction line and divide the base under the table into 2 compartments. I will use a proximity switch to switch a electric/pneumatic valve(junk I have lying around) to run an air cylinder. This will operate a damper to switch suction from one compartment to another as the gantry passes over it. That way I will only be sucking air from 4 ft of the table at any time and it has proven very capable of this.

[Metalworks]

To: MetalLee

Sorry for the delay in answering your question........I use furnace filters on the outside of the squirrel cage fan, primarily to keep from getting grit inside the fan. The filters do capture a lot of the particulate matter and can turn black after awhile. I simply use the old filters from when I change the filters in the house heat pump.

The fan is located inside the plasma room and vents outside the shop, so the filters are primarily more for fan protection than anything. I got the fan from Grainer and also bought the "extended protection replacement plan for a few bucks more. Fan motors will suck up the plasma dust and get into the windings, eventually shorting the motor out. I've had some fans only last a few months but when I added in the outside furnace filter for protection, I'm going on 2 years with this motor.

[eteled]

Hello every body I had the same problem. I am backing onto a residential area and did not want to cause any problems with smoke that the plasma creates I had a small 2 speed fan and my shop would fell up with smoke within seconds and also my neighbours yard . I installed a larger fan and a 10' smoke stack to get the smoke up higher and hopfully drift away but the smoke still ended up in the neighbours yard. If you want to get rid of 98% of the smoke convert your table to a water table, as I did yo will be amazed you hardly need a fan to exhaust the smoke fumes.

[planetxfred]

Hi, just visited a fellow Plasmacammer in Ecuador who uses an exhaust fan feeding into a vortex collector that traps the dust in a water bath, sucks the dust away from the table (and operator) and traps it in a water bath with a little soap added. Smart and efficient. By the way, 1000 cfm is great plenty of air flow, just block off most of the unused area. If you block off all but one square foot of area, you have 100 ft per min of air flow (down) and more than enough to take care of the dirty nasty yellow brown smoke that indicates a clean cut!!