Hobbiest building a rotary 4th axis - plasma cutting.

[Anonymous]

Hello,  I've just recently added plasma cutting to my home made cnc table and was hoping to try rotary pipe cutting.  I've watched a few tutorials on rotary milling and drew up a test project but the rotary axis seems to require a licence??  Or cloud credits to buy a rotary axis license?  I seem to have 100 credits.  Now I've no idea how I got them.  Do they just build up over time?  What would be the best option for hobbiest like myself? I use my rotary maybe 1 or 2 times a year with my CNC so thought learning to cut pipes might be a handy skill to learn.  I notice there is a 7 day free trial, but Im not quite ready to start yet and dont want to waste days so thought I'd ask here what other hobbiests are doing?  Im not even sure it will do rotary plasma cutting?  Is the rotary function just for milling?

[johnswetz1982]

You would only need 2D Contour with the wrap option selected for what you are after. The [Rotary]  that requires cloud credits under extensions is for 3D rotary operations.

[seth.madore · Accepted solution]

I will point out:

2D Contour doesn't work with a Plasma cutter selected, nor does the 2D Cutting (Plasma) support wrapped geometry. You would have to hack a post processor to control your torch and lie to Fusion by selecting an actual cutting tool, such as an endmill.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the replies.  I think I have it sorted.  I just un-rolled the pipe and created a tool path for it when flat using the regular manufacture plasma cutting.  I set up a new profile in Mach3 with the rotary A -axis and the X - axis swapped. This allows me to jog the X axis over the pipe still.  The G540 controller is 2000 steps per revolution.  I have a 100:1 harmonic drive in the mix also.  2000 x 100 / 359.084 ( which is the circumference of the 114.3 diameter pipe) gives 556.9727 steps.   I'll just set up a profile for each of the 4 pipes I need to cut.   Here's the test.

[seth.madore]

Brilliant, thanks for sharing your solution!