Outer Limits 4x4 Board

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.

Just a rough estimate!

Jason

About $75 - $100 bucks.

Try Laser3D in Dandenong.

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Grant.

Beauty, thanks. That's a bit less than I thought.

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.

cheers Struth.

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.

cheers Struth.

Does this price include the steel?

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.

http://www.emachineshop.com/download/index.htm
you email them the pic n they send u the goods

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.

Go laser. Much neater than waterjet.

Laser3D did these flanges and supplied the 10mm mild steel material for $75.00

See below.





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Grant.

Looks good raptorthumper. What is the cutout on top for? The bottom one I can guess.

raptorthumper wrote:Go laser. Much neater than waterjet.


Laser3D did these flanges and supplied the 10mm mild steel material for $75.00

See below.





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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.

turbo flange

correct.

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.

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.?

Grant.

you're getting ripped off, my laser cutter would do that for under $40

YankeeDave wrote:you're getting ripped off, my laser cutter would do that for under $40

Who?

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.

YankeeDave wrote:you're getting ripped off, my laser cutter would do that for under $40

For $80 odd, its still cheap!

PJ.zook wrote: The size of the liquid nitrogen tank they had cooling the laser was the size of a minitanker too.

The nitrogen is used for cutting not cooling. Like a plasma cutter uses compressed air.

Shane

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

GQPatrol V8 wrote:The nitrogen is used for cutting not cooling. Like a plasma cutter uses compressed air.

Shane

Really? Didnt know that, i just assumed it was a standard high powered laser.

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.

Cheers Struth.

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