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After over a year and a half since I placed this table into service, I have since built a proper water table for the machine, added home switches for the gantry, and upgraded the Z axis to a Velox CNC Z with a floating head and machine torch bracket. The original Z axis that I built worked great, but shaked slightly at high speeds, and always needed to be readjusted, so I decided to go with a piece designed by a very reputable company, Velox CNC. Along with this upgrade, I will be adding ohmic sensing capabilities to the machine,...

When you build a CNC plasma cutting table, you generally have three options for how to deal with the fumes from the cutting process. These options are as follows:1. Do nothing. If you don't like your lungs, or the lungs of your operators, or no one is around while the machine is cutting, just cut over slats and the fumes go where they want. I wouldn't recommend this route unless the plasma cutter is outside the building, or it's in its own room with heavy airflow. 2. Downdraft table. An downdraft table is essentially an enclosed area beneath the slats, but...

So, quite a bit has gone down with the machine since my last post. I spliced together the racks, referencing the teeth with a third piece to make sure they mesh up exactly as needed. Then I TIG welded the two together, sanded flat, and attached it to the underside of my rails. To attach the racks to the rails, I used double sided tape made by 3M for auto body molding. I have seen this done on a number of machines, including popular brand name kits. I was skeptical, and was ready to TIG them on if it failed....

I finished my floating head. I designed it similar to that of the second iteration of my first machine. The Z axis shares the same V rail as the floating head. The floating head is as long as it is, because it will clear the V bearings for the Z axis, as well as act like a strong back for the torch and prevent it from shaking during quick Y axis maneuvers. Using the slots in the X axis V rail extrusion, I have placed a stop for the floating head to keep it from dropping off. On the upper...

Alright, I solved my flexing issue by adding an extra plane of support. I drew up these support plates from 14ga steel and sandwiched it between my spacers, 1 inch off the main aluminum plate. I extended my X axis gear reduction bolts through to the front of the plate to mount to the support plates. Again, please excuse the use of nuts and washers as spacers. Once it is all sorted out, I hope to have all proper spacers installed. Here are the plates: Here they are installed: