Doing my own Upgrade to my TM2

[twelve02customs]

Hello All,

I have been in this business for a little over a year now and have had some great experiences. Some frustrating. Some rewarding. I am sure you can all relate.

I own and operate a TM 2 that I have done several internal upgrades to including Stingray THC from FC CNC along with new software, new motors and cabling.

I am now looking to improve the operation of my table, including;

1. Reduce the weight of the gantry (narrower cassette to also buy perhaps another inch of headroom) if possible. Currently I have a 3x3 extruded aluminum gantry and I'd say its near 160 (or more) with all the junk on it;

2. Installing linear rails to the outside of the table as on my table the racks are to the inside of the table and get full of debris at times when cutting. Even just a method to move the racks to the outside would be nice. Do linear rails work with stepper motors?

3. I would also like to install another motor on the x axis to improve smoothness therefore improving cut quality.

4. Install a bellows for the y axis to protect that axis from debris as well.

4. Lastly, I would like to investigate improving the moving parts and consider an upgrade from the rack and pinnion and belt drive. If that's possible? I have steppers now and feel I will just stay that route unless sense can be made to upgrade to servos (no knowledge/experience with them). At the very least I need to have spare parts on hand so that when these existing parts crap out I can quickly run a swap out and get back to it.

Any and all information is appreciated. Especially from those that have done their own upgrades. Be easy to just buy a new machine for sure, but the one I have doesnt owe me anything and it still has plenty of life in it, especially if I just improve a few things. TIA!

[Kitch940]

Joe I will add a few more things as I'm at work (with no work currently) and am checking all the old forums right now. I saw your other post on CNCZone then again here. I messaged you back earlier on messenger too but I will add more stuff here.

I have a TM1 gantry kit from 1998 with a black 2.5A stepper box that run my motors. I have 3 drive cards and only two used now as I changed from the slaved second x axis motor back to the drive shaft (need to redesign my table entirely the right way.) I also have an upgraded separate 501A signal generator to run the new software. My table originally had microkinetics software that was offered before driver software version 1 (flashcut stuff) so shes an oldie. I am currently running the original add-on height control unit made by Technogon circa 1998-1999 that was offered for torchmate tables. (Fun fact it was made by Leon Drake, who at the time worked for Torchmate, then started his own line "Dynatorch" which is now going out of business I believe.) It uses proximity sensors to keep the torch from hitting the plate. It's not great but I just run it in manual mode and watch the torch as it cuts. If it starts to jog up a little I will simply hold the down button to get it back to the proper height. Works well for what it is and is wayyyyy better than no height unit. I am probably the only person in the world still using one of these haha. Torchmate came out with their own height unit pre red screen with prox sensors and a smart motor and I did have that for awhile but liked the Technogon unit more. I did also buy a red screen height unit and battled with that for months before going back to old faithful Technogon. Never tried the blue screen and probably wont. I am interested in the flashcut upgrade you did and how it works! I also have upgraded to cad 8.

I will say to search "black hollow mfg" in the torchmate forum on cnczone and check out his old build it was pretty slick back in the day.

Also, I think Austin Lanier upgraded his old TM table from the belts and pulleys to 5:1 gearboxes as well. He is pretty knowledgeable on tm stuff too.

If you are running flashcut V4.5 software you can program a Logitech usb playstation controller to run basically all of the software. I use mine (I have both flashcut 4.5 and also torchmate 4.5 softwares, they do the same thing just have different backrounds tm is black fc is white) to jog the gantry, start and stop the program, fire the torch to do rip cuts and stop the torch, zero the program, turn the software online/offline etc. I can help you with it but its awesome. Get a $20 controller off e bay and download JoyToKey software I think its like a 10 dollar license fee and I can send you my setup file.

I am not convinced that swapping from a single x axis motor with driveshaft to a 2 motor gantry will product better cuts. I like the fact that I know my gantry is square and can not get out of square with the driveshaft (assuming stuff stays tight). I have read many posts about two motors getting out of sync and people putting hard stops on the home end of the machine to basically crash the gantry into to square it up again... this does not hurt the steppers but it is what it is to make it square. I do hate the racks being able to collect crap on them though it is an old poor design for sure. All new tables have dual x axis motors so they must have some way to insure they stay in sync right?

I have added a laser crosshairs to my table that turns on upon going online and turns off when starting my program and I like it. I also have wired in limit switches so I don't run off the rack and also for homing my machine they are both good upgrades if you don't have them. If you have hard stops you wont have the home switches though.

These old tables were top of the line in their day for light use. I have done alot of research on these old TMs and reading old forums and upgrading from where I started 5 years ago. I will get around to redoing mine sometime and making it right before I bought a new one. With mine I run mostly 14ga CR steel at 150 IPM. I get pretty good clean cuts most of the time and that is good enough for me and what I do. I ran two 4kW lasers for 5 years that could cut 1" thick steel. Going from them to plasma sucks but its what us middle class folk can afford I guess haha.

-Dan

[Rodw]

So some pointers to consider:
1. Gantry weight - You should be able to get to 45 -65 lb. I use 40mm x 80 mm aluminium rectangular section. In the US, 2.5" x 2.5" is marginally stiffer. Giving u the convenience of extrusions gives you significant weight savings.Velocity and acceleration is king as you know! Keeping it as low as possible reduces the impact of inertia.

2. I run my 25mm (1") linear rails on the outside and under the table frame to keep it out of the dust but this is at the expense of gantry height. I am sure I am way over engineered. There is nothing wrong with steppers. In fact, if correctly engineered steppers are a good choice for plasma becasue of their massive torque at low speeds to maximise acceleration and overcome inertia. They will never loose steps if set up correctly.

3. I don't know your table but I don't think replacing a single drive via a shaft with dual matters makes much sense but you know the table. Using Linuxcnc squares the table whenever you home the table using offsets set in the software so that would solve any issues about racking. I can't speak for other control systems.

4 & 4. Plasma has no cutting forces so they are entirely predictable so a well engineered solution using steppers will exceed the performance of servos (but is harder to design). I don't think pinions are an issue if correctly matched to the drives. If you send me a PM, I will be able to explore the engineering side of motor selection further and introduce you to the right people in the US to make sure you get a kick ass engineered retrofit with spare parts backup. (I am in Australia)

[Roman]

Post pictures when done