Re: Retrofitting a plasma cutter and need motor reccomendations.
Originally Posted by
Jim Dawson
Sounds like you are good to go, now it's just a matter of choosing a control system.
Assuming you are not wedded to Windows and you go with Clearpath Step/Direction controlled drives, consider LinuxCNC and a Mesa 7i76e ethernet card. There is also a $70 Mesa addon board that measures torch voltage and there is a number of ways to do THC with it within LinuxCNC. Or you could wire in your existing THC and let it control the Z axis.
If you wanted to use your existing motors, there would be other Mesa solutions to drive them.
The 7i76e has the advantage of having 32 inputs and in my experience, you can never have enough when building a plasma machine.
Rod Webster
www.vehiclemods.net.au