The material is bar grating. The dimensions are 3' X 20'. The individual grating itself is 1 1/8" -hieght , 1/4" material spaced about 1 1/2" apart. I have tried with a plasma to no avail. Someone told me that they thought Esab made a gantry type CNC flame cut system, but I could not find it on the website. I have sent them an inquiry and am waiting to hear back.
have you tried a rotary carbide blade cold cut saw( metal skillsaw). it is amazingly fast and accurate for the straight cuts at least. I'm sure if your looking for cnc you have already tried such rudimentry techniques but in the mean time it will definatley speed things up in the right hands. just a thought
darren
Couldn't You put a 1 1/4" or greater capacity plasma machine torch on any CNC [flame or plasma] cutter? I would tink the flame process would be a problem with each bar requiring a new start. I have seen advertising for the plasma cutters that have the feature for expanded metal, but no experience with them.
Hello again welderseller, obviously the thickness of the bars and the depth are the main issue here. Are you finding that the plasma stream doesn't have sufficient focus and power to complete the cut through each of the grate bars? or is this more a matter of the interrupted cut causing an outage of the arc? Would a more powerful power source deal with the 1 1/8" depth issue? The problem I could forsee with the flame cut unit would be one of requiring a dwell time each time the flame came into contact with one of the bars in order to cut it as well. It could be a programming nightmare. One other possibility that I could possibly see could be dealt with by using one of the tables that has a rotary head for the cutting platform(one that I can recall seeing like this was built by ESAB). In this instance, the cutting head portion of the table has an angular and rotary function incorporated into it. The head could be programmed to angle cut instead of straight cut the bars(meaning as it approached the bar to make the cut it would start the cut on the top edge and as the cut progressed it would allow for the cut to extend through to the bottom of the bar) and when a corner was encountered for a change in direction, it could be programmed to rotate to maintain the angular cut. I would still suggest a plasma power source over a flame cutting unit. Some thoughts to consider for you. Good luck on this and I would like to hear how you end up resolving it. Regards, aevald
Have you tried looking into water-jet cutting mounted on a CNC system?
I know that pricing has come down substantially but, I do'nt know what your budget constraints may be so, just a thought!
Respectfully,
Henry
Tilt the cutting torch head at a slight angle...this helps with getting started on each bar, and you don't need the extra power that you would to cut 1 1/4" thick materials....
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