Questions on My Proposed Table Setup

[Bobkovacs]

Good morning!

Newbie here, making my first post. I'm about to take the plunge and set up a plasma table setup, and wanted to see what y'all thought about my plan of attack.

I'm looking at the Precision Plasma 2x4 Benchtop setup with a candcnc DragonCut electronics package. I'm thinking of using a Hypertherm 45, since I don't envision ever cutting over 3/8" plate (most of my work with be "art" type stuff cut from gauge metal, and maybe the occasional 1/8" plate), but I want to get the extended duty cycle and capacity of the 45 vs going with a Hypertherm 30.

I've currently got a 20-gallon compressor that puts out 5.5 scfm at 90psi, so it sounds like that's not quite enough for the 45 (they say 6.0 scfm at 80 psi). I'll likely be trading up to a 60-gallon unit (kicking myself for not buying that in the first place....), and adding an air dryer setup.

The DragonCut package recommends Mach3 and SheetCAM, and mentions Inkscape for drawing manipulation, but I can't seem to find a whole lot of info in Inkscape. Since most of my stuff will be creating vectors from scanned images or jpegs, will Inkscape suffice, or would I be better off with Coreldraw or something else? If Coreldraw is the right package, which version is adequate?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Bob

[I Lean]

Your table, electronics, and plasma setup will be just great (very similar to mine, just smaller), but you're right about needing a larger compressor.

Inkscape is free software, you could download it right now and start playing with it. From posts on here and elsewhere, I think CorelDraw is the "standard"...meaning you'll be able to get more help with it, and it's probably more powerful.

[fergy]

just a thought bob
but if you are already kicking yourself for getting a compressor that is too small how long will it be before that size table is too small
fergy