At work I’m currently using a massive 4 spindle shoda machine/fanuc controller with 2 vacuum tables as well as an old burney 1250 plasma table.
I have pretty much unlimited access to them as long as there’s not shop work. I was wondering if a lowrider would be able to compare to what these 2 machines can put out so I could finish some projects at home, or if I would be better off just using the shop stuff.
Milling, plasma, or both? What kind of feed rates are you looking for? Plasma should be comparable with linuxcnc and a decent cutter but milling might take longer than you’re used to.
I would like to do both. Most of our feeds are mm/minute and we average 12000mm/min cutting through 1.5 inch pine(basically 2x4s stacked intersecting the layers on the other side anr nailed together out of the path of the bit and then flipped to the other table to cut the other side).
It would be nice to switch over to plasma to do some steel inlay via plasma on the same machine if possible.
Wow. Nope. This machine can’t do that. 200mm/s at 38mm doc? That’s insane. I’m happy when I can manage 10mm/s and 6mm doc with a 1/8" bit.
This is an entry level cnc that opens doors for people who couldn’t otherwise afford or justify a cnc machine. It will never replace machine in a professional shop that costs 100x as much.
Thanks for the honesty! I still have my mpcnc, but it’s basically a large laser cutter these days.
I guess got spoiled with the speeds that the shoda can cut at.
Wow, that thing’s a beast!
I’ve throttled my lr plasma to a max of around 6,400 mm/min, and as you know plasma doesn’t have milling cutting forces to contend with.
That’s The speeds for the router. I honestly don’t know how fast the plasma runs.