My Breakaway Torch Build

Brian1

Long story short my Hypertherm 1250 blew up so I replaced it with a new Powermax 85 and this time I got it with a machine torch. I needed a new/better mount for my older Bulltear Table in order to go from the hand torch I was using to the new machine torch. I have heard of several machine torches snapping the torch body in pieces from collisions so I figured why not do it right from the start? I did some searching around and saw a few homemade breakaways and the Snap-n-cut and Dynatorch breakaway mounts. The latter 2 are expensive for what they are in my book so I made my own version. I ordered some Neodymium Magnets from ebay, ordered some bullet nose dowel pins from Enco and sorted through the Aluminum scrap bin at my local Metal Supermarket and found 2 chunks that would work perfect and lastly some bolts from Ace Hardware. Total materials comes out to just under $30! Lots better than $200+!! I drew up my idea in Solidworks to fine-tune it and then spent some quality time on my Bridgeport machining the components out. I have tested it out and it works great, it comes apart crashing front to back and side to side and the magnets are strong enough to keep it in place while touching off on the material. The dowel pins auto-align the torch perfectly and as a bonus to change consumables the torch comes right off which makes changes much easier. Now to move on to the next project - adding cable carriers to my table and getting rid of my 'boom' setup. Here are a few pictures of what I came up with-

jeepsr4ever

Very cool Brian! One that system the steppers skip before your torch breaks via spring pressure, its an engineered balanced approach to CNC plasma. On a belt or gear reduction system you need a torch breakaway plate. We have a magnetic breakaway system coming out next month. It wont help you now but thought I would mention it. Good luck and good idea!

Brian1

jeepsr4ever;131216 wrote
Very cool Brian! One that system the steppers skip before your torch breaks via spring pressure, its an engineered balanced approach to CNC plasma.

Thanks! I saw you had mentioned the springs on another site when I was researching. A little redundancy never hurts!

jeepsr4ever

Hey Brian more pics please! :)

Brian1

Thats about all the pics I have. I can take a few more next time I am cutting something...

jeepsr4ever

Hey Brian how is the new torch holder working out?