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CNC Plasma Cutter 

The goals for this 4' by 4' CNC plasma cutter included a cheap, effective design capable of taking up minimal space. To keep the design affordable, 80x20 extruded aluminum was not used, which presented difficulties with the design but reduced cost significantly. The movement of the X and Y-axis utilizes a rack and pinion design, and the Z-axis uses a ball screw. The motors used for the X and Y-axis are Nema 23, which provide plenty of torque and horsepower for the project's scope. The CNC was built to fold up against the wall and completely out of the way when not used to solve the problem of taking up a small amount of space.

Features

The control mechanism for the plasma cutter utilizes a touchscreen display featuring commonly used buttons such as homing, X and Y linear motion control, resetting the zero point, and more. The other control system allows users to control the CNC with a laptop and upload gcode files to be cut out.

Down the Line

Future improvements for the project include adding a probe sensor that would have the CNC correct its height mid-cut to correct for warped areas in the metal and set the perfect initial starting height.

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