Basic Cutting Table Design

[manac]

Upgraded my old hf machine to a 45xp.
Next step to design, build a cutting table. The gantry will be later.
Looking for suggestions please.
4’x4’ 1000lbs static load. Probably aluminum construction (gotta work on my tig skills).

Wet, dry, or hybrid?
Size of slats? Strait or bent?
Height? Used for manual cutting at first and a bit once the cnc is set up.

[acourtjester]

I go for wet and bent, about 4.5" deep slat top about 3.5"

[weldguy]

I prefer dry bed with an exhaust fan and bowed or bent slats for sure, I shear my slats to 3" tall.

[manac]

What’s the advantage to a tall slat vs something 1” tall, durability?
Would 1/4” hardware cloth (screen) under the slats be useful to catch parts?
I’ll make the bed/tray removable so I can play with different solutions.

[weldguy]

If you are cutting thicker materials a 1" slat could get burnt pretty near right through, I have deeeeep gouges out of my 3" tall slats that would have burned away a 1" tall slat with my little Powermax 65. I wouldn;t go any shorther than 3"

Anything that catches parts will fill up with crap. I built a "ramp" under my cut deck so when parts and slag drop it slides down the ramp and onto the floor at my feet. Easily pick up the parts and sweep up after each use. Otherwise crap will collect under the deck until you can't stand it anymore and it takes you a full day to clean it out.

[acourtjester]

I use 1.5" slates on my water table and they last a long time, some guys use a magnet on a stick to pick up parts in a water table too.. Good thing here many members many very good ideas, seems to be what each likes and uses for their setups.

[manac]

Next Question(s)
How deep should the water be for a 45 Amp machine?
How high should the top of the slats be above the water?
Right now I’m leaning towards a water table with a duct above the water line in case I want to drain it and run it dry.
Thanks for the help

[adbuch]

I am using a water tray in conjunction with a draft system to evacuate any residual smoke. My water tray is well below the cutting grates, as opposed to some of the designs that use the top of the water level just below the material being cut. My water tray is 4" deep with a diamond mesh screen mounted about 2" above the bottom of the tray. This is handy to catch smaller parts. I have been using my system for almost 4 years and it works great for me.
David


Click to see photos of build.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/h8LHufi6frttfGNQA

water tray screen.jpg

[manac]

Design done, material ordered. 52 x 52 x 32h, 48 x 48 cutting area. 1/4" hardware cloth under the slats, 30g tank.
Main structure is 1 x 2 x .125 6061-T6.

CUTTING TABLE ASEMBLEY 1.JPG

CUTTING TABLE ASEMBLEY 2.JPG

[adbuch]

That's a really nice design! What cad program did you use to model it? I will look forward to seeing photos of your progress as you build it.
David

[manac]

I’m ex Navy. Solidworks sells us a non-commercial license for $20 a year.
I have NX at work but for personal projects I like to stay current with SW.
Starting the gantry now, will post pictures as I go.

[adbuch]

Thanks for the reply. I am an occasional user of SolidWorks 2016 - what is NX and how does it differ from SolidWorks?
David

[manac]

NX was called Unigraphics, high end pain in the butt CAD program. Good for designing jet engines, cars and such.
SW is a lot more user friendly mid level program great for machine design and such.

Lot of good people here that help out. I've gotten a lot from the forum.
But I'm going to stop adding to this forum. I don't like that they put parts of my posts behind a pay wall.
Someone was having trouble designing a fire pit. I made a quick spreadsheet that would calculate the trapezoids needed.
When I posted it it couldn't be seen unless you are a paying member.
I get that they need to make money and paying to exchange cut files makes sense.
But I think asking for money for people to get ideas and help is wrong.
Be over at LinuxCNC, plasma & laser category.

[adbuch]

Lot of good people here that help out. I've gotten a lot from the forum.
But I'm going to stop adding to this forum. I don't like that they put parts of my posts behind a pay wall.
Someone was having trouble designing a fire pit. I made a quick spreadsheet that would calculate the trapezoids needed.
When I posted it it couldn't be seen unless you are a paying member.
I get that they need to make money and paying to exchange cut files makes sense.
But I think asking for money for people to get ideas and help is wrong.
Be over at LinuxCNC, plasma & laser category.

I don't mind contributing $20 annually to help keep this forum up and running. The wealth of information I have gained here is in my estimation well worth the minimal contribution.
David

[adbuch]

Manic,
I would urge you to reconsider. Google Drive and Google Photos are both free services where you could post any spread sheets, photos, or other information you wish to share with either paying or non-paying members. Simply type the link to your spread sheet or photo album into the text in the body of your post and the non-paying member could "cut and paste" to view the information you have contributed. For example:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/h8LHufi6frttfGNQA

The non-paying (or paying) member can cut and paste the link for access to the photos.

David

Google Photos.jpg

[acourtjester]

I also use the Google Drive, 15 G free storage and $2. a month for 100G storage. Mine looks like a hard drive with folder for whatever I want to to store, just drag and drop transfer from my hard drive to the Google drive. I can share any of it to another by clicking on share, this way I can either do a transfer to only one (via their email address {non-Yahoo} ) or a link for anybody using it to download the info. Here is an example of a open transfer to anybody

[manac]

I don't mind contributing $20 annually to help keep this forum up and running. The wealth of information I have gained here is in my estimation well worth the minimal contribution.
David

It's not the $20 to the support the board that bothers me.
I could very well seeing spending the $20 when I have my machine up and running and need cut files.
It's that they take my post of an idea or help and charge for it.
Again it's not the exchanging of cut file, but the idea that if I try to help someone out with a problem that people have to pay for that.

Google drive is a good solution but that is not in the spirit of what they are trying to do on the board.

I'll still check in, the LinuxCNC forum references this board all the time.

[djreiswig]

They're not charging people for your help. They're asking people to pay a small fee to pay for the overhead of running this site. I'm not sure what it costs to run a site like this, but I think $20 a year is pretty reasonable to have access to a place where I can share ideas with people all over the world. The non-contributing members have access to a wealth of knowledge and can freely share their ideas, they just don't have the privilege to access the shared files on the site.
I'm sure there are other sites that fund their overhead with more aggressive advertising and don't charge a fee. I don't really have an issue with the $20. JMHO.

[adbuch]

[manac]

Spent a few days working on the table.
Now I need to finish the design for the gantry.

6.jpg