Greetings Root CNC community!
I have fallen down the rabbit hole in my quest for a DIY CNC Plasma Table, and that lead me here. I am loving the Root CNC design and would like to begin sourcing and printing parts.
I already have some aluminum box tube, 1.5 inch square and it seems this would be a good size to use for 1500mm sections for X and Y. That lead me to the Root 4, however, I am currently leaning towards using timing belt rather than lead screws due to the mess plasma cutting creates. Of course, this will require me to modify either the Root 3 parts for the larger box tube, or the Root 4 parts for the belt drive.
I believe I will get a little more speed out of the drive belt transmission and I think it will be more robust in the Plasma environment.
FYI, I would like to use LinuxCNC and Mesa 7i76 driver board rather than an Arduino controller for the ease of including THC and Ohmic sensing. I also believe the Mesa boards are more reliable in the noisy EMI environment created by Plasma. Hopefully, Mesa will have some boards available soon! I have a Hypertherm 45XP with a hand torch so I have a good start.
I am putting my thoughts here for any insight you folks with more experience may provide.
Thank you!
Dave Zeigler
Hi FullMetal
Welcome to the forum!
I would love to build a plasma cutter table and this will make me jealous!
Cutting to the chase:
I do agree the belts option would probably be the best option for you and I know someone has already done a 1.5 Inch Root 3 variant. whilst its not an official release - they did an amazing job. So I would hunt around for those files!
Modifying the Root 4 parts might be labours - so I wouldn’t recommend it. Although - having some dust shields might go a long way, as the ball screws are mounted low to help reduce the chances of swarf hitting them.
I have no experience with MESA cards, aside form the fact I attempted to buy one but the shipping to the UK was more than the unit it self and I couldn’t justify it at the time. Then I decided to build my own CNC controller which I hope soon will support a THC (When I finally get around to build one), but that wont be for a long time. If anyone reading this is interested - check it out here: https://rootcnc.com/root-controller-iso-about/
but those card will certainty do you the job for you - good choice!
Hi Pete,
Thanks for the reply. I will search for the Root 3 1.5 inch variant and look at the possibility of some dust shields on the Root 4. With a 5mm per revolution on the lead screws you recommend, I suppose it would be possible to put a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio set of pulleys to get it to the recommended 15mm to 25mm per stepper rotation for a plasma table, should it be necessary - or get a different lead screw assembly.