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Geez I am asking a lot of stupid questions lately. Sorry.
Let's say hypothetically I wanted to get a steel plate, say 8mm or 10mm thick, cut and drilled quite accurately. About 200mm x 300mm. All the holes are round, say 12mm except the centre one which is bigger.
Now if I supply an autocad drawing or whatever format the guy wants, what would it cost me, roughly, to get that plate made?
Here's a hand-drawn example just to give a very rough idea of what sort of thing I am talking about.
I have another option besides getting this made but it involves a few hours of sweat, so I am just wondering what it costs.
He's right, draw it in CAD and convert to a DXF file. Any laser cutter should do the job for under $100.00.
If you need the holes to be particularly neat then have them lasered about 1/2mm on diameter smaller than required and open them out with a cobalt drill. Though this is probably too accurate depending on what the plate does.
Struth wrote:He's right, draw it in CAD and convert to a DXF file. Any laser cutter should do the job for under $100.00.
If you need the holes to be particularly neat then have them lasered about 1/2mm on diameter smaller than required and open them out with a cobalt drill. Though this is probably too accurate depending on what the plate does.
I would say, take the cad to a waterjet cutter. It is deadly accurate and does not get hot or distort, It also has a clean unburnt cut. it is About the same price as laser, or maybe even cheaper.
Price sounds about right, water cut or laser prices are pretty equal. Finish comes down to cut speed. If it's only mild steel I got a really cheap price on some CNC plasma cut profiles when I built my camper so that may be any option as well.
raptorthumper wrote:Go laser. Much neater than waterjet.
Laser3D did these flanges and supplied the 10mm mild steel material for $75.00
See below.
__________________________________
Grant.
Neater than waterjet! I have had glass and tiles cut with waterjet, and it was a perfect finish.
They look good though, and good price with steel supplied.
Raptorthumper, could they do that TB 42/45 exhaust flange in 16mm thick, either steel or stainless?
I'm not a fan of turbo exhaust flanges of 10mm thickness as they will warp over time.
Regards Andrew.
We are Tig welders, gravity doesn't worry us.
[img]http://www.studmonkeyracing.com/forums/smilies/weld.gif[/img]
Not sure if they can do it. Give them a ring. At the manufacturing expo in Jeff's shed i saw a large CNC laser cutting machine ripping through 20mm steel plate, so it can be done. Depends whether they have a large machine or not.?
I would have thought 10mm thick would be enough. Im about to do the same and need similar options.
Anyone seen one of those large lasercutters doin theyre thing? I watched the one that cut out a heap of plates i needed for my buggy, it was awe inspiring to watch. The thing seemed to totally ignore the laws of inertia! It would cut something like that turbo flange in about 3seconds literally!
The size of the liquid nitrogen tank they had cooling the laser was the size of a minitanker too.
Doesnt Roctoy do laser cutting?
I bought a zook transfer mounting ring from him, not sure if he does it or has someone that does the cutting for him but either way he probably can arange it for you.
Link to his transfer rings for sale http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/PHP_Modul ... nsfer+ring
Boys water cutters are designed for materials that can't be cut by laser, like aluminium which reflects the laser and hence has to be water cut.
That is there only reason for existence in the everyday world.
We get 10mm plate and 3mm plate laser cut all the time and it is rare to receive steel that is not beautifully cut and only requires a linsih to make perfect.
Be careful if you do your own DXF file though, if the scale is not right you end up with the wrong size. We did 800mm x 200mm instead of 400mm x 100mm shapes.
really I wouldn't expect to pay our laser cutter more than $20.00 for this but then we get thousands worth cut per month.
If you are walking in off the street then $75.00 would do me. It would cost more in mucking around to go somewhere else.
Laser only 2/3 price of water cuttin or less.
If you do your own .dxf just tell em it is to final size and they can simply offset the laser to suit.
That thing you drew should be minimum charge. prob $50
