Homemade DDCS V2.1 CNC Plasma Cutter! | IT WORKS!

[@DustinCorbin]

Let me know what you guys think of my DIY machine! Did I make a horrible mistake? What can I improve and what do you want to see next?

[@blazegbs]

Nice job. Love a good repurposed machine video. The reason you only need one M03 S1200 command is because Gcode was written as a Modal language. Modal is just a fancy way of saying that whatever parameters that the Gcode sees first will keep & use those parameters until changed or canceled by the program/user. So in your example, you have turned on the switch with the M03 S1200. To turn the switch off, you would just need to put in the command M03 S0. Hope that helps further your understanding of Gcode. Having the ability to design & manufacturer pretty much ANYTHING I can think of in my studio is fantastically satisfying.

[@DustinCorbin]

@@blazegbs nice! I had no idea but I appreciate the information! I have been using Gcode for years, but I haven't really taken a deeper dive into HOW it works. This project was the first one in a few years where I was heavily using Gcode and I had to refresh myself a lot on it. Thanks for the info!

[@jsquirre]

awesome stuff. after putting a laser engraver on my ft5 i was eyeballing the folgertech cnc for exactly this project. congrats on adding anothe great tool to your toolbox

[@lubzdalas8277]

Bro u are top G when it comes to mechatronics i salute you from Uganda 🤘

[@DustinCorbin]

@@lubzdalas8277 much appreciation! 😊

[@MadZax33]

Nice work! I still just free hand plasma cut, but I built a rotating table to easily cut circles/pipe... Can still freehand a lot if you have nice jigs! Using the CNC to make jigs so you can cut more out by hand faster, could be cool too, since you don't want to put too much usage on the CNC if you don't have to

[@DustinCorbin]

Absolutely. I think of this as another tool in the arsenal, which is why I designed it to be very easy to go from handheld to CNC and back.

[@KSMechanicalEngineering]

Great project

[@DustinCorbin]

@@KSMechanicalEngineering Thanks! 😊

[@andyb7754]

Very interesting and informative video, thank you.

[@theatomproject007]

Great use of a deprecated product. From all the times I had to rebuild my FT-5 I wanted to do a DIY a CNC plasma, but I decided to just buy a commercial STV SparX 4800 table instead. Glad I did for a number of reasons, but building your own has its advantages - cost. Though you will quickly find that torch height control is necessary and other aspects of the control firmware need to be tweaked to make clean cuts, start to finish. Ball screws help some for the ringing people often see with belt driven systems, but there are some unique aspects of how a plasma torch works that need to be considered in the firmware for maximum cut performance. Even the affordable MyPlasm controller falls short in some aspects, but it's a solid pro-sumer grade controller for the cost. Good to see you got your controller to work... never underestimate the power of hacking the g code.

[@DustinCorbin]

For sure! I know one day I will build something from scratch, or at least integrate THC into this one. I didn't attempt this build to make a highly reliable machine with aerospace precision or high repeatability, but considering what it can do, what I will use it for and the low amount of commitment (money mainly) to make it work, I'm pretty happy with it. Plus, it was super fun tackling each component and making them work for "unintended" use cases. It was nearly a month of working every day after work, designing, testing, guessing, researching, etc, and every completion led to the start of a new challenge. I loved every minute of it. Thanks for watching and the comment!

[@UndernetSystems]

Great video. I'm sure you could have figured out the whole button situation and ssr. It's not that difficult, probably just a pnp transistor driving the input of the ssr from the button when it detects ground.

[@DustinCorbin]

@@UndernetSystems I also wanted to make sure that I have good isolation between the plasma cutter and the control board. You never know when something may go haywire and I would really prefer to not have a direct connection between the two.

[@4arus]

Hello friend. And where can I get a postprocessor?

[@DustinCorbin]

I have added it to the project page on my website. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! :D www.dustincorbin.com/blog/2024/8/3/homemade-ddcs-cnc-plasma-cutter-conversion

[@stephenlinzel8846]

What are the specs for the solid state relay you used to turn on the torch?

[@DustinCorbin]

@@stephenlinzel8846 The one I have is a dc/dc solid state relay, I think input side is 3 to 32 volts DC and the switched side is up to 300 volts DC. In my case the switched side is just connecting two wires together so it's rating doesn't really matter much.

[@stephenlinzel8846]

@@DustinCorbin Do you know the amperage rating on the switched side?

[@DustinCorbin]

@@stephenlinzel8846 I think mine is 25A or something, but the signal for the plasma cutter is low voltage and low current, so pretty much anything will be fine.

[@luckygaming3423]

w😮😮😮okpl😅