4x8 Classic series cut issues

[TheGarageBay]

Still experincing big issues in cut quality on my classic table . Was bought new and just put to work in March this past year. Light and heavy gauge sheets, does not matter. Anyone out there have the same issue and if so how did you overcome it? Various line speed tests and etc. but nothing has really helped to dial it in .

Pictured above is 1/4 plate 3x4 roughly . Line speed at about 50ipm
air pressure at 85psi
pierce height at .16
cut height at .08
arc voltage at 136
flexcut 80 running at 60 amps

 

[Arkansas Metal Art]

Can you post pics of the table, lifter station, etc?

 

[TheGarageBay]

Will most certainly, ill be back in the shop this evening

 

[Motobilt]

What is the part supposed to look like? Are the holes supposed to be round or slots? I have ran a few TM classic tables over the years as well as the new 4800. You could probably drop the amperage little.

one of the issues we dealt with on the classic series was keep the set screws tight enough on the drive gears. Secondly was getting the proper gear mesh so things would work smoothly. I would certainly say check all of these things often on the classic.

 

[Josh Caudle]

I’m new to the Torchmate series CNC cutters...but all of my documentation say run your air at 60psi...I am working on 16 sheets of 1” right now and had to crank my air up to 68psi. With that being said I haven’t touched the air for smaller gauge steel.

Are you running 50’ torch lead?

For reference I am using a FC125 on a 4800 Table. Less than a month old.

 

[TheGarageBay]

Motobilt, could you possibly dive a little deeper into the “gear mesh” procedure? From what i think i see when the maxhinecis running , it looks to me like it is jumpy and could be related to the gearing

 

[Dnmeistr-LECS]

The Flexcut 125 calls for around 60 psi, where the Flexcut 80 calls for around 80 psi. Gear mesh is simply put, the spur gear which turns on the shaft meshing with the gear rack running the length of the axis, backlash is the adjustment in how deep the spur gear sits into the gear rack, 0 backlash meaning spur gear is bottomed out on the gear rack. The only way to test for backlash is with a dial indicator, shooting for .001 to .004 thousands of an inch.

 

[OcalaWill]

Looking at the lower left corner of the piece it looks to me like something is out of square. It could be slop in the gears, but it wouldn't hurt to check for squareness too. (Z-axis too) Also 50IPM may be too fast (?) I find with my GS table it is very sensitive to vibration, and change of direction going to zero velocity creates this. So slowing down may help.

I am finding being a newbie that I have to burn a lot of metal and take notes otherwise I just chase my tail. I also save all my test pieces and write notes on them with a silver sharpie. Good luck with it all - you will get there!

 

[LECS-Chad]

So Ill just start with do a line speed test and establish the proper speed for the thickness of material you are using. IF you are going off of the book speeds then you will probably be too fast for the material.
Also, conventional air plasmas have a 2:1 ratio for bolt holes. Which means that hole diameter:thickness of material. So 1/2" thick material will cut a 1" diameter hole pretty nice.

 

[TheGarageBay]

Sounds good guys i will check level and square this week and look into the backlash on all gears after i do any changes . Here is my setup for reference

 

[LECS-Chad]

That machine has spring loaded motors so gear lash "shouldn't" be an issue unless the gears are worn. I'd be more interested in the water table to the gantry/machine. Also the torch body squareness to the bed will also effect the bevel.

I would go through the line speed test to determine the proper speed for the material you are cutting. Those holes in the plate are definitely smaller than the 2:1 ratio but also by the tooling angle you are travelling too fast for that material/amperage.

 

[TheGarageBay]

New issue sprung this evening ... machine now cuts as if a 5 year old was holding the torch lead as i datum the machine I get a horrible noise from the motor and it does not want to get into position ... any ideas? I haven’t had time to tweak the machine with the holidays and all , need a job done for tomorrow night and now I’m stuck in the water

Video

 

[Thumper44]

The noise I’m hearing in the video is the gear slipping on the motor shaft. When I first bought my classic table I also had big issues with this problem. After days worth of work my problem was fixed and I’ve had no issues with it since. If your still having issues, let me know and I’ll go deeper into what it took to fix.

 

[LECS-Chad]

New issue sprung this evening ... machine now cuts as if a 5 year old was holding the torch lead as i datum the machine I get a horrible noise from the motor and it does not want to get into position ... any ideas? I haven’t had time to tweak the machine with the holidays and all , need a job done for tomorrow night and now I’m stuck in the water

Video

Sounds like the gantry is binding while trying to datum.

I would recommend turning off the ACCUMOVE box and try to move the gantry by hand over that area. possible gantry out of square to the table in that corner or getting lag in one motor over the other.