Torchmate 4x4

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Joined
Mar 10, 2006
Threads
175
Messages
1,382
Location
Grass Valley, CA
Just ordered a CNC plasma table from torchmate today. Super excited. Should be here in two weeks, got a ton of work to get done to get the shop ready for it... but I'm stoked.

Hopefully we can make some money with this, that is the idea. I really see a huge potential to make a small business out of it. If not, I still will be happy with my use of settlement money (blew my shoulder to bits two years ago causing me to have to leave UPS after 9 years as a driver). Worst case, I have a badass tool, but I really think with a little effort there is money to be made with something like this. Not expecting to get rich, but some extra money coming in.

I'll post some pictures when I get it all set up. :)
 
Congrats. I think with that attitude, you'll have lots of fun and hopefully some money that will at least pay for the table and then some. I'm still in the research phase looking for mine. Can I ask what sold you on torchmate vs others? I'm in between arclight and ldr motion systems mainly because of the water table already being built into the design as well as cost. But I know some people love the design edge software from plasmacam, however, the cost was a turn off for me.

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I'm attending some welding and machining classes at Yuba college, and they have a torchmate, it's easy to use and works awesome and I just got sold on it pretty quick after using it for a while. Both the teachers there highly recommended it and both said they felt the software was the smartest out there for the price range. I didn't shop around a lot due to the fact that it was so highly recommended by some very smart folks... and I was used to using the software and machine already.
 
I'm attending some welding and machining classes at Yuba college, and they have a torchmate, it's easy to use and works awesome and I just got sold on it pretty quick after using it for a while. Both the teachers there highly recommended it and both said they felt the software was the smartest out there for the price range. I didn't shop around a lot due to the fact that it was so highly recommended by some very smart folks... and I was used to using the software and machine already.

I am very interested in seeing how this works for you. I have heard a lot of great info about torchmate and how user friendly the program is. I am wanting to buy one for my home shop. Keep us updated.
 
I will, it gets here Thursday. I will be taking lots of photos and post some pictures once we get things set up. Probably going to take a few weeks to get it going, have to move a lot of stuff around to make room, just got a container yesterday so all the stuff in the shop will be going into it, and then our little shop can purely the work area.

I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. I have a lot of ideas and plans... really looking forward to playing with me new toy. :)
 
Got it Thursday. Pretty much just unpacked it and moved it into the shed. Friday worked out rad, the welding teachers at school happened to be going to go tour and do some software training at TM so I tagged along and it was pretty cool to go check out the company and learned a lot about what the heck I'm doing with the software.

Really... that's the part that I'm worried about. I'm a bit retarded with computers, but so far it's pretty easy to work with. Figured out enough to get it to cut some premade stuff I've found online.

We did get it set up this weekend. Got it squared up tonight and adjusted. Going to get the slates for the cutting surface Wednesday. Got all the electronics hooked up tonight and jogged everything back and forth. Tomorrow I'm going to clean it all up and mount it all how I want it. I would have had this all done this weekend but my computer crapped out Sunday morning and I had to get everything reloaded and fixed and I was just pissed and didn't really do anything because I was just in a bad mood.

I'm moving a little slow, but right now I have to wait until my buddy can come put another 220 outlet in my shed before I can even run it. I've got one, but I need one for the compressor and one for the plasma so until he can get over here I'm just waiting for him.

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Don't mind the tweeker shed... it's all I've got right now! Hopefully I can make some money with this thing and build a real shop sooner then later. :)
 
Sweet. I'll be following this thread. I'd like to get a CNC Plasma to start a side business. Can't wait to see your progress.
 
I actually bought one about two weeks ago! Love it so far. Haven't really used it much yet though everything I played with bent really easy and clean and so far so good.

Got the table all set up and running... but just waiting on my buddy to come rewire some of the shed so I can have other 220.. he's making it sound like he's got to finish a total rewiring of his sister in laws house before he can come do it... so I might have to actually hire someone which sucks.. but I don't want to wait a month for him to finish for what should be a few hour job.

I tried to do a test cut just letting the compressor fill and then unplugging it and plugging the plasma cutter in... but it didn't cut.. don't know why. I thought I had everything hooked up right, and the control box clicks on and off when it's trying to signal the plasma to fire.. but the plasma didn't do anything. I didn't get to play around anymore today before I had stuff I had to take care up, hopefully tomorrow I can figure out why it's not vaporizing metal!
 
Well, finally got everything hooked up and dialed in and it's working awesome. I am thinking of making this I would never have thought of even attempting to make before now that I have this. My brother in law is getting a homemade hatchet for Christmas... never would have even considered I could make my own hatchet until this week... ha ha. :) Very happy with it.

I do find that TMcad is VERY clunky feeling to me. I've been using AutoCAD and then importing it as I just can't get the hang out using their CAD program. I'm sure its fine, but I don't care for drawing in it so far.

Already made two small projects and have about 30 things drawn and ready to cut in the next few weeks. Then I'm going to deck my 40 out in some of the stuff I have planned and see how well it all works.

Made this for my dad this weekend too.. he's a hardcore trout fisher and was talking about it would be cool to have fishes cut out on a roof rack. So I did.

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And made these for my mom's screenprinter today... the company she gets her supplys from wanted $80 each for these. I found some scrap and it took me about 15 minutes to make three of them for free for her.

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Nothing amazing yet, but everynight can't sleep thinking of all the awesome stuff that I could do.. ha ha.
 
Cool!! Looks like you're having fun and glad the machine is working out for you. I'm still researching between the LDR and Arclight brands, but hope to pull the trigger sometime this spring. In the meantime, I've been messing around with free versions of CAD to figure out how to draw using a PC. It's been a slow process but the youtube tutorials have been helping me out.

Did you have a lot of experience with Autocad before getting the machine? I think that is going to be my biggest hurdle.
 
Huh... had some really annoying issues today. The gantry is binding when it's at the end of the table. It works fine over the entire rest of the movement, but at the very end it just stops hard and gets twisted and stuck. :( I resquared and messed with everything and cleaned the rails and couldn't figure it out. In the end I just moved it an inch away from it's binding point and went to work.

Happy once I got over that frustration though. Made something rad today... at least a prototype. Still needs some tweeking to work perfect, but so far so good with it.

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This one is just a prototype to test fit things. I am actually retweeking the drawing right now to fix some stuff, but the idea worked great. The tabs all worked to line everything up, and the relief cuts let it bend really easy. I think 10 gauge might have been overkill too.... crap it's heavy.

As far as AutoCAD, not a lot. I took a class at on AutoCAD a year ago... before I had any idea I was going to buy a table. I had wanted to become a machinist.. and was trying to go to school for that... but didn't really love it as much as I thought I would and really loved playing with the table at school. So yeah.. I had a little AutoCAD knowhow before I started, and I'm using AutoCAD to draw most of the stuff I'm doing right now and just moving it into TorchmateCAD to do the tool paths.

The software really is the hard part, the table was really straight forward to get together and working.
 
Couple of my learning projects.

Starting to feel like I have some clue what I'm doing. Soooooo much to learn for someone who has never done anything like this before.

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