Best rails position on frame in a dusty workspace

[pit34]

Hello,

I am currently designing my first plasma table with a 2x1m cut area.

The thing that questions me the most is the problem of dust on rails, and more generally how to protect rails.
I plan to use Hiwin HG20 or 25 rails, but I worry that dust and cut projections can wear rails or carriages. I think about put rails on sides, or under sides (suspended gantry) but this only partially resolve the issue.
My workshop is very dusty (because of a lot of different activities).

What could be your advices / hints for this point and on frame shape / rail position ?

Precision : this table will not be used intensively. Only a few times a month. And I have already made an investment on a Powermax 45xp with CPC port, a hand torch and a mechanic torch.

Thanks in advance,
Have a good day.

[SeanP]

Good question!
Not really a lot of options on the gantry, dust seems to go everywhere anyway, pierce mostly.

I went with a single 30mm rail on the gantry and only used cheaper alternative, I've run it hard for 9yrs now, I put 2 replacement sets of bearing blocks on but just replaced the rail and blocks with hwin this time, the have double dust wipers on, but I'm not sure it keeps all the dust out even now.
The y axis are still using the original rail and bearing blocks and still feel good.

Here you can do a bit more to protect them, the protruding flat as in the pic really does help a lot, for dust and water splashes, good for sliding sheets over as well.

T1.jpg

T3.jpg

[weldguy]

I would say that Sean's setup above is about as good as it gets. Looks great and rail position protects them from flying molten metal and makes for easy material loading. As Sean said dust is always going to be an issue no matter what you do but good rule of thumb is to wipe the rails down with a Scotchbrite pad after every use and then blow off with compressed air.

[SegoMan DeSigns]

Rail position is also dictated by the thickness of metal and how it will be loaded unload from the cutting area. Low mounts allow forklifts and slide offs of the material but are subject to splashing from the water table. Hi mounts keep the rails above the mess, but are a "bugger" to get heavy metals out unless you have an overhead crane. Some companies will put a bellows style shield over the rails for protection, the rest of us do weekly cleaning / wiping down with WD-40.

https://www.automation4less.com/bellows.htm

[SeanP]

Rail position is also dictated by the thickness of metal and how it will be loaded unload from the cutting area. Low mounts allow forklifts and slide offs of the material but are subject to splashing from the water table. Hi mounts keep the rails above the mess, but are a "bugger" to get heavy metals out unless you have an overhead crane.

You know I aways wonder why more small tables don't have higher sides like I have done, they seem just the right height to me.
The way I load is to have a 3' length of 3" tube running across the slats and a foot away from the nearest side, I have 2 stops on the opposite side, just some flats, then load sheets with forklift, must admit I was lucky the forks tip to a good angle, lower down and reverse off leaving sheet sat on the bar.
Then just have a piece of inch box and pry up the sheet off the raised sides, have another hook tool to poke under sheet and pull out to sides, lower the sheet down to the slats, its very easy I've done that with a 8x4 of 15mm.

Not easy to describe or probably understand how it works, I'll maybe do a video one day, works great.

[pit34]

Thanks for those replies and information.

Maybe there is a way to do the best of both worlds (rail under and above water level). What do you think about attached schematic (I have edited your picture SeanP, hope it is not an issue).

Rail are protected against dust and water splash. The bent sheet can serve as fairing too, to protect the rail against fall of objects or bad sheets manipulation. Dust could always go on rail, but it should be in lower quantity than with opened side.
Metal sheets can still be loaded by sides with hand or elevator.

The schematic is not at scale, but I think a space could be let around the rails to easily clean them with hand.

[SeanP]

I'm sure that would work fine as well.
I've been using mine most days for the last 8yrs and to be honest I wouldn't go back my original design it really works well, the cover on the side rails seems to be enough in my shop and I've plenty dust around.
Perhaps the gantry if I was doing it again the double rail design would be more stable and a better bet, but for ease I just went with a replacement this time.

[SegoMan DeSigns]

Rail position is also dictated by the thickness of metal and how it will be loaded unload from the cutting area. Low mounts allow forklifts and slide offs of the material but are subject to splashing from the water table. Hi mounts keep the rails above the mess, but are a "bugger" to get heavy metals out unless you have an overhead crane.

You know I aways wonder why more small tables don't have higher sides like I have done, they seem just the right height to me.
The way I load is to have a 3' length of 3" tube running across the slats and a foot away from the nearest side, I have 2 stops on the opposite side, just some flats, then load sheets with forklift, must admit I was lucky the forks tip to a good angle, lower down and reverse off leaving sheet sat on the bar.
Then just have a piece of inch box and pry up the sheet off the raised sides, have another hook tool to poke under sheet and pull out to sides, lower the sheet down to the slats, its very easy I've done that with a 8x4 of 15mm.

Not easy to describe or probably understand how it works, I'll maybe do a video one day, works great.

I got a pretty good idea of what your talking about.my 2x2 Torchmate has elevated side rails and F/R braces that makes getting a full piece of heavy plate in & out of. The 6x12 has low mount rails and has some room to allow for different heights of slats. I have seen some tables with these type of bearings on top of the bed to facilitate sliding material on / off :

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=Flush+ ... &ia=images

I'm a few years behind on making videos myself. I never did a completed / working video on the 7 y/o T M or the 2 year old 6x12 add a recently completed Press Brake to the list