Another Newbie

[Chris J]

There are precision nozzles available for the better brands of plasma cutters, however it all depends on how much you want to spend.
Hypertherm is one of the top end brands that I can think of right now that I think does them.

The minute someone says it depends on how much you want to spend my blood chills a bit

I guess I was hoping to spend £1k maybe a bit more, not including a pc, so not a huge budget.

[russell]

You mean brooches. Broaches are used for making holes in metals :-)

Russell.

[Web Goblin]

A Hypertherm Hydefinition plasma system will set you back way over £1K. I think all Hypertherm Hydef systems are all mechanized systems and not available as portable units which means they would all need three phase supplies.

Ian

[Chris J]

Russell, That's what I wrote

[Chris J]

A Hypertherm Hydefinition plasma system will set you back way over £1K. I think all Hypertherm Hydef systems are all mechanized systems and not available as portable units which means they would all need three phase supplies.

Ian

So it would seem, nice gear though.

[Chris J]

.....I didn't have problems when cutting 5mm thick copper on my CNC router, but maybe I just got lucky......

Jonathan, what machine / cutter did you use to cut the 5mm sheet please ?

Chris

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, what machine / cutter did you use to cut the 5mm sheet please ?

Chris

See here:

http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/showth...ooling-system/

The outer profile and 2mm wide slot were on my CNC router and the 0.5mm slots were cut with a slitting saw on the milling machine. To be honest I can't remember which cutters I used. Probably these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5x-6mm-Car...item20b95dbb6d

The same seller has plenty of smaller ones too...

[Chris J]

See here:

http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/showth...ooling-system/

The outer profile and 2mm wide slot were on my CNC router and the 0.5mm slots were cut with a slitting saw on the milling machine. To be honest I can't remember which cutters I used. Probably these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5x-6mm-Car...item20b95dbb6d

The same seller has plenty of smaller ones too...

Brilliant, thanks

[m_c]

The minute someone says it depends on how much you want to spend my blood chills a bit

I think it has that effect on most people!
If only I could match those 6 numbers...

I guess I was hoping to spend £1k maybe a bit more, not including a pc, so not a huge budget.

As Ian's highlighted HiDef plasma is out of the budget.
I know normal plasma has a cut width of 2-3mm, and would be fine for doing the main outline cutting, so it may be worth considering a router/plasma hybrid. The two processes do have opposing requirements for cnc, but given your requirements, and with some careful design, should be doable.
Under typical use, a plasma table requires lots of speed with little torque and not very tight tolerances (when you've got something cutting +-0.5mm/trailing behind the torch position, tolerances/backlash requirements aren't that high), whereas a router table needs more torque with less speed but tighter tolerances.
However, given the size of cutters you need, torque won't have to be much for the router, and with the reasonable price of ballscrews, a good compromise of torque, speed, and tolerances should be doable, and combined with a lower power plasma cutter you shouldn't need crazy high cutting speeds.

[Jonathan]

I think you'd be best to design a CNC router than can incorporate a plasma cutter, but don't get the plasma cutter until you've tried cutting with the CNC router. I'm fairly confident that with plenty of coolant you'll be able to cut the copper without problems. When I cut that part from 5mm copper the part got exceptionally hot, but with flood coolant that wont be a problem.