Plasma table build, first question....

[Davek0974]

Rough calculations, with a 3:1 reduction on my gantry drive motor, 1 step of the motor will give me 0.16mm of travel, if using micro-stepping as recommended, then 8 micro-steps will give me 0.02mm which seems very fine for a plasma cutter??

If I can reach 500rpm on the shaft, I should get around 16m/min of speed but that's a guess as I have no idea of acceleration curve yet, I'm looking to keep the gantry light by mounting the drive motor on the main chassis and driving through the belt along the side-frames, I think that makes more sense than mounting the motor on the gantry and using to "rack" its way along a fixed belt.

I have two 3.1Nm motors, 3 x 5A drive boards, a breakout board and a 36v PSU coming.

Have also reloaded XP onto my target PC and have been playing around with the demo mach3 plasma install, downloaded a manual too. Just waiting for material to arrive now.

BTW, I have had to reduce the size of my intended machine as it wouldn't fit in my workshop :( so it's now got a cutting area of 2' x 2', not as good but easy to expand later on.