I fell in love with the Editor’s Choice Award winning Magnepull, a tool professional installers use for fishing cables through walls, and I wanted to give it a try. Since we figured this tool would make it easy for anyone to run wires – not just professionals – Mark Z. grabbed a camera and filmed me fishing the cable through the wall so you guys could see how easy it is to do.

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MoodStream - Sets the Mood

Here are some amazingly awesome ways to visualize people’s emotions that you may have never heard of.

We Feel Fine

"We Feel Fine" - Emotion Visualizer

We Feel Fine is a computer program that strives to paint a portrait of all the raw human emotion that the Internet contains in its blogs. It was created by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar in 2005.

What We Feel Fine does:

• Continuously locates sentences with the words “I feel” or “I’m feeling” in them
• Collects these sentences and other information from blog entries and compiles them into a database
• Detects what emotion is being expressed and categorizes it in the database
• Uses the data to create a visualization of millions of people’s emotions worldwide

We Feel Fine creates visual emotions using a Java particle applet. Each particle represents one person’s emotion from one blog at one point in time; different emotions are different colors. Particles containing pictures are square; the rest are circles. A user can click on any particle to read what sentence the person wrote and where they were in the world when they wrote it.

We Feel Fine paints such a broad picture of international human emotion that its two creators have written a book about it titled, “We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion.”

Moodstream

MoodStream - Sets the Mood

With a kind of backwards methodology, Moodstream strives to inspire certain moods in people by streaming images, sounds and video clips to your screen to match a certain mood. By selecting the mood you’re in, you’re visualizing that mood conveyed by various types of media in ways you may not expect.

Adjustment options:

• Preset moods: “excite,” refresh,” “intensify,” “simplify,” “stabilize,” and “inspire”
• Individual emotion sliders: “happy/sad,” “calm/lively,” “humorous/serious,” “nostalgic/contemporary,” and “warm/cool”

The user can select one of the preset moods and the program will briefly collect files for that emotion before streaming them nonstop to your monitor and speakers. Alternately, tweak the sliders for individual feelings to visualize exactly how you’re feeling even if it’s a mixture of emotions.

Lovelines

LoveLines - Visualizing Love and Hate

Lovelines, another program from the creators of We Feel Fine, uses the same engine as its particle-based cousin to search for and save a database of blog sentences about love and hate.

Lovelines features:

• A large slider to select how much love or hatred you want the material to contain
• Scroll-through viewing format – one sentence at a time on a stark white background
• Cursor can select which month and year’s love/hate to view
• Depending on the position of the love/hate slider, sentences will all begin with “I love,” “I like,” “I want,” “I hate,” etc.
• Superlatives: a compilation of whatever was most loved, hated, etc for that particular month.

Databases and the Internet make viewing the variety of real human emotion out there easier than ever before, and computers make the resulting visualizations into works of art literally collaborated on by millions of people. What will we invent next?

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When Flickr first appeared on the Internet, it was simply a handy tool to store and view photos. In the capable hands of visualization designers, Flickr has become a nexus of information about how people see the world.

Features such as tagging, groups, friend networks, and timestamps enrich each image with social and temporal context. Here are five visualizations that use Flickr’s meta information to highlight the unseen patterns behind all of those beautiful pictures.

1. Tagged Color

If an image is tagged “summer,” what colors do you expect? What images come to mind with the word “magenta?” What colors are people compelled to photograph? Christian Giordano’s Tagged Color visualization explores these questions and more. By mapping the user-supplied color field data and the most popular correlating tags, this visualization shows fascinating trends in the obsession with color.

As you’d expect, “winter” retrieves a palette of blues, grays, and ebony; friendly purple correlates well with other colors; green’s the most-tagged color; and lonely cyan is always reported correctly, but doesn’t correlate well to any particular photo subject. Even in this age of RGB, the sky is blue on Flickr.

2.  The Tag Galaxy

Like Tagged Color, Tag Galaxy uses a visualization to show relationships between tags. Here, the user picks any word to be the center of the universe. That word becomes a sun in its own solar system; Flickr’s favorite associated tags become planets.

For example, when Apple is the sun, its system includes a small, close planet labeled “Fruit” that is highly correlated with “Apple.” It also has a larger, more distant planet labeled “Macbook,” illustrating a larger set of photos with less correlation.

3. Flickr Graph

What about Flickr friends? Marcos Wescamp’s attraction-repulsion visualization of a user’s friends is prettier than reading a list and more insightful, too. This visualization highlights cliques within a user’s friend list, and features skeleton-key buddies who seem to follow the user through multiple circles of associations.

The most interconnected and open users don’t have circles of friends so much as a large interconnected mass of companions, sharing photos and friendships.

4. Visualizing the Processing Flickr Group

“Processing” is a programming language for creators of visualizations. Andreas Koberle used this language to create a visualization of the relationships between all the members of the Processing group on Flickr.

The image is literally a circle of friends, and the friendliest of the bunch form very obvious fountains of connections. The image is appropriately titled “everyone knows everyone from Flickr.”

5. The Geotagger’s World Atlas

When you’re in Paris, where do you go in a day? How much ground do you cover in a week? How many other tourists have traveled your same path?

Eric Fisher’s Geotagger’s World Atlas shows an eerie temporal ghost city, as told through the timestamps and geotags of tourist’s photos. Paths of travelers, extrapolated from their photos, map out popular city destinations; locals-only neighborhoods fade into white, unrecorded.

Thanks to these and other visualizations, Flickr has become more than an Internet photo album; it stores a snapshot of the relationships and perceptions that shape human life.

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Ok, so I told you guys about the SawStop table saw about 6 months ago, and if you’ll recall, this is the table saw that will stop when it senses flesh touching the blade in order to save the roughly 10 fingers that get cut off every day.

Well, the inventor of the SawStop, Steve Gass, finally stuck his own finger directly into the blade on a Discovery TV show and put his money where his mouth… er, finger is. Watch and see what happens!

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If you’re anything like me, you appreciate a nicely built power tool. Seriously, I love the smell of a workshop in the morning! Of course, I’m not as big of a fan of all the bleeding that normally occurs in said workshop… and I tend to do that a lot while I’m building things.

So, anything that can be done to increase the safety of a power tool is a good thing. And the table saw is one of the most dangerous pieces of equipment in the world! 60,000 table saw accidents occur every year – that’s one every 9 minutes.

Now there is an answer to this problem. The SawStop.

SawStop Saws are the most advanced saws in the world. Each saw is equipped with a safety system that detects when someone accidentally contacts the spinning saw blade, and then stops the blade in milliseconds.

This video tells the entire story, but if you want to see the SawStop in action skip right to the 4:05 mark and check out this incredible piece of machinery.

This one comes courtesy of my neighbor Steve, who knows what a power tool freak I am. :-)

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A Canadian named Troy Hurtubise, invented a superhuman body suit specifically designed to be worn by troops and police officers which he claims is capable of stopping a range of weapons fire, blades and even shrapnel from IEDs.

This isn’t Troy’s first dance either. He previously invented a suit which was intended to be able to survive a bear attack, and even made a video of it.

Here is a short take from the Project Grizzly video:

The Hamilton Spectator had the following to say about the new suit:

The grizzly man is back, and this time he’s ready to take on bullets and bombs.

Troy Hurtubise, the Hamilton-born inventor who became famous for his bulky bear-protection suit by standing in front of a moving vehicle to prove it worked, has now created a much slimmer suit that he hopes will soon be protecting Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

He has spent two years and $15,000 in the lab out back of his house in North Bay, designing and building a practical, lightweight and affordable shell to stave off bullets, explosives, knives and clubs. He calls it the Trojan and describes it as the “first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armour.”

And here is a short video of The Trojan body suit:

Unfortunately development of this suit has driven Troy into bankruptcy and earlier this year he tried to sell the suit on eBay, but the reserve was not met.

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This site has been getting a lot of visitors from the search engines due to my previous posts about the PlasmaCAM CNC Plasma Cutting Machine.

These visits have translated into quiet a few questions coming in via my contact form. Several people considering the purchase of a PlasmaCAM have received the DVD from them and have been asking me how much of it is true. After all, Stan makes it sound so easy to start creating anything you can imagine from metal with this machine. ;-)

As a result, I’m going to walk you through the video step-by-step and provide analysis to help separate fiction from fact.

If you’d like to print this out to keep handy while you are watching the video use the Print this Post feature (also at the bottom of the article) to format it a little better for that purpose.

For convenience I’ve embedded an excerpt of the video from the DVD.

If you would like the full DVD please contact PlasmaCAM and I’m sure they’ll be happy to ship you one out.

Let’s Get Started!
Below you’ll find the time marker in minutes and seconds, followed by my opinion on the issue presented at that time.

0:00 – 1:00: The DVD starts off with some shots of a wide range of parts and completed projects all cut by the PlasmaCAM.

Yes, it did cut all that stuff, though the pieces you are seeing have also been welded, finished and powder coated.

1:15: We first hear Stan Ferris’ voice asking:

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you could make these kinds of products with only a small amount of effort?”

Well, yes Stan, that would be nice! But frankly you can’t. Most of the projects shown required a considerable amount of artistic creation, which translates into hours and hours of digitizing followed by a considerable amount of cutting, welding, grinding and powder coating.

Metal fabrication is a dirty, sweaty, hot, dangerous, capital intensive business and should only be attempted by people who have adequate training.

Personally I’m a trained welder, blacksmith, bladesmith and power hammer operator. I had over a years worth of experience operating a plasma torch before I ever purchased a PlasmaCAM, and without it I’d have had major problems getting this machine to operate at times. I’ve also taken college level AutoCAD courses and am an expert with CorelDraw for graphic illustration.

1:51: Stan introduces himself as a:

“…nuts and bolts kind of guy…” who “…under normal circumstances I would not have tried to operate a computer controlled machine….”

Well, here are a couple of comments to get us started:

1. If you are not computer savvy, do NOT purchase a PlasmaCAM. There is very little instruction regarding the use of the actual software, and the info provided comes in the form of a written manual.

   There is a small amount of video instruction, but PlasmaCAM desperately needs to create video tutorials on how to use the features of this product. There is simply nowhere near the amount of training material available that I think there should be.

2. I highly recommend experience using AutoCAD if you are going to do parts production, or CorelDraw (or another vector editing software package) if you are going to create artwork.

   You are not going to want to use the PlasmaCAM software to create designs unless you absolutely have to. Think of it just as a clean-up and cutting package.

2:57:

“The robotic cutting table plugs into your computer just like a printer.”

Not true anymore.

100% of the printers sold today plug into your computer using either a USB, Ethernet, or Wireless connection. The PlasmaCAM plugs in using the old style parallel port connection, and when I was setting my machine up this was the greatest source of issues. I had to call and get support from George (who is awesome!) to get mine working.

This is a bigger problem than you might think… Since the machine requires a parallel port you have to use a computer that has a parallel port built in. This will exclude many of the PCs available today and all of the laptops.

You cannot use a USB to Parallel port converter as it won’t work. If you purchase a PC without a parallel port then you’ll have to order an add in card, and these are almost impossible to find now days as well.

Make sure you have this covered before you purchase a PlasmaCAM!

Commentary:
PlasmaCAM is well behind the curve in the connectivity arena. Not only should the machine offer USB connectivity, it should really have a wireless NIC installed that allows us to control the machine over 802.11x.

Either of these would bring the machine into the modern age, but wireless would be vastly preferable.

3:00:

“The machine uses your ordinary plasma torch to do the cutting. It’s easy to remove in case you need to cut by hand.”

Well, kind of. If by “easy” you mean “possible”. But it involves disconnecting cables, cutting plastic tie downs, plugging in adapters, remounting and calibrating things… You’re not going to really want to remove the torch unless you absolutely have to.

3:32: What Stan is demonstrating is not something you’re ever going to see happen in the real world. He’s taken a perfectly printed photo of a single leaf, on a completely white background and scanned it. He is then converting all of the colors except the white background to black, essentially creating a single filled in shape.

Let’s look at a more realistic example. Here is a little key shaped bottle opener that I designed by sketching it on drawing paper with a pencil.

1. After scanning it on my Canon MP830 I saved it as a bitmap and imported it into the PlasmaCAM software. At this stage I had to select all of the different shades of white on the right side of the screen to use as the background color – in other words, things not to recognize as completely black.
   
2. Next, you select the size of “holes” for the software to try to fill in, and the size of random “speckles” for it to delete.
   
3. Next you choose the resolution and smoothing for the image, which in this case won’t make a bit of a difference.
   
4. Finally you have the imported image which, in this case – and most others, is going to require a LOT of editing before it is even close to ready to cut. We’re talking about hours of editing.

This whole process can be completed in 1/10th the time using CorelDraw. So if you don’t know how to use it go find a graphic art course at your local community college and learn Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw.

3:55: Scaling, rotation, cut path creation, copying and moving the image are actually as easy as they say. That is not to say they couldn’t use some improvement…

Commentary
One of my biggest disappointments is that there hasn’t been a single software update since I purchased the machine, despite the fact that there are a number of areas that could be improved.

And this is one of my greatest sources of concern for the longevity of this product. All of PlasmaCAM’s competitors release frequent updates and improvements to their installed user base.

5:10: Frankly I do not believe that they were able to cut that entire sheet of leaves out automatically and unattended.

• Small or intricate parts tend to fall partially through the grates, but not completely. This leaves them sticking up and in the way of the torch head which in turn rams into it bending the part, knocking the torch out of alignment and often damaging the cutting tip.
• This happens constantly with my little Plasmites (hand cut prototypes here) if I don’t baby-sit the machine. The only way I’ve found to avoid this is to cut the parts and remove them one, or a few, at a time. This is probably why we don’t see the machine cutting more than 2-3 leaves.

5:17: Interestingly, I can’t find Cash Metals on the Internet anywhere. I must have Googled for 15 minutes with no luck. I even paused the video on the pages of their catalog and searched for product names, but nothing turns up.

Despite that, I believe that everything John Cash stated was accurate.

6:35: It’s really a shame that they don’t have a video library that shows how to use all the features they are demonstrating here. It would have made learning how to use the software so much easier…

9:05: Ok, this is important to note. Between the times the machine cut the sign out and Stan picked it up, it was obviously moved from a production area machine to the machine in the video.

The plasma cutting process spits out dust and smoke in copious quantities! The floor beneath the machine would be burned and filthy, and there is no ventilation system present. Finally, without gloves, Stan would not be able to pick up that metal seconds after the machine finished cutting.

Commentary
You need to be aware that any plasma cutting process, including the PlasmaCAM, puts out a ton of airborne particulate matter that requires adequate ventilation.

If you are going to get a plasma cutting machine you need to plan to put it in an area where you can blow all of the smoke and dust either outside or through an expensive air filtration system.

9:10: Here’s a link to find more info about Dan Romano. He’s a metal artist and the things he makes are close to what I do. I agree with everything he said.

11:22: This is the best example in the video of what I was talking about when I said that small or unusually shaped parts would not quite fall through the grates. Notice that the piece which was just finished tilts up and is sticking up above the surface of the original material.

If the machine attempts to move over that area, which it might well do on its way to cutting something else, it will collide and screw everything up royally.

A collision of this sort will bend the piece that is sticking up, knock the torch head out of alignment, move the base material -making it difficult to line back up and restart cutting, and potentially even ruin the torch tip ($15 wasted instantly). I’ve also had the entire torch head assembly pop off the unit during one collision with thick material.

Bottom line, this is not good… the only way I can think of to solve this issue is to have a tighter mesh of grates to hold the material, but neither PlasmaCAM nor anyone else I’m aware of have yet solved this problem.

11:39: I’ve not yet tested the indexing of parts longer than 4 feet yet, mainly because I’m scared of ruining a large, expensive piece of steel. Whenever I do test it, I’ll post about it, but if anyone else has tried please provide some comments below.

Remember, you can cut things longer than 4′ but not wider than 4′! So, a 3.5′x7′ sign would work, but a 4’2″x 5′ would not. The table is a square 4′x4′.

13:21: Stan claims,

“This part is being drawn to exact dimensions in only 14 seconds.”

There is something strange with the video here, because Stan claims it’s just 14 seconds, but when I play it back it’s more like 11 seconds. This makes it seem as if the video has been time compressed.

Additionally, they would have to be typing in lengths – while creating the part – in order to make it “exact”, so I just don’t see anyone being able to go that fast.

11:15: Some people have asked about the thickness capability of the PlasmaCAM. Here we see it cutting 3/8″ thick material. Later you’ll see 1″. The thickness of cut is going to be determined by your selection of plasma torch, not the PlasmaCAM.

I use a Hypertherm 1000 which will cut at least 1″ thick material. But keep in mind that the thicker the material, the more it weighs. And you have to be able to load the sheet on the machine…

14:02: Jim LaTour from Turbo Engineering Corp provides good examples of what the machine can do. For his type of business the machine is perfect.

Conclusion
There is far more content on the DVD that I’m not going to go through. But if you are interested in seeing it, by all means contact PlasmaCAM and order the DVD. They’ll be happy to send it to you.

Now, I know this review comes across as being fairly harsh on the PlasmaCAM video, but please keep a few things in mind:

• I own one of these machines. I love it. You can take it from me when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
• As a former VP of sales for a major multi-national company I think this is a fantastic marketing video. They have done a great job of emphasizing all of the strengths of this little machine.
• Since the video is so well done I worry that people with no welding, fabrication or plasma cutting experience will be lulled into a false sense that they could actually operate this machine. Trust me… you can’t!
• The PlasmaCAM is a serious hobbyist level machine that will perform admirably for people who are comfortable with computers, know how to use graphic design programs or AutoCAD, and have general fabrication experience.

Frankly, there is a short list that will let you know if a PlasmaCAM is right for you:

1. Do you have space restrictions? If so, this is one of the smallest machines you can get.
2. Do you have a forklift handy? If not, this machine is one of the only ones you can actually unload, build and move yourself (~300 lbs.)
3. Do you need something reliable and simple to operate? With a little practice the PlasmaCAM becomes second nature.
4. Do you want to wait 2-3 months to get a machine? My PlasmaCAM shipped one day after ordering. Other machines I was considering would have taken months to deliver after I paid for them.

I hope that this information was useful. If so, please drop me a comment below to let me know. :-)

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A company called Aqua Sciences was recently put on the Time Best Inventions list for it’s portable water extraction systems. These systems can be deployed to areas affected by disaster to ensure adequate clean water supplies.

The 20-foot machine can churn out 600 gallons of water a day without using or producing toxic materials and byproducts. They also have larger units that can pump out 1200 gallons a day.

The US Government has already purchased several of these for use in Iraq as well as in disaster areas within the US.

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Every car built since 1996 has a diagnostic computer connection under the dash called an OBD-II which allows mechanics to plug in and find out what that annoying red light on the dash is trying to tell you. Of course, getting a mechanic to plug in and tell you what’s wrong will probably cost you at least $100.

Luckily for us all, there is now a service called CarMD.com which allows anyone to plug into their car and then check the Web to find out what the issue is on their own.

A $90 tool is required which is what actually interfaces with your cars OBD-II port, and after you’ve read the code from the car you plug it into your computer to get an explanation of what the trouble code really means.

Obviously this tool could save it’s own cost during it’s first use by simply understanding what the problem is. It might be something simple enough that you can fix it yourself, or it might save you a bundle by being able to let the mechanic know that you are aware that the problem is, for example, just an oxygen sensor as opposed to needing an engine overhaul.

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Over the past two days, I completed the setup of my new CNC Plasma cutting machine (also see PlasmaCAM Part 1), and man is it awesome!

After physically constructing the cutting table, I needed to do a little wiring in my Hypertherm PowerMax 1000 plasma torch so that it would interface with the control box of the PlasmaCAM in order to allow the machine to turn the torch on and off. The instruction video had me really worried because it kept talking about needing to have a professional electrician install the wiring and then perform a huge batch of tests in order to ensure everything was OK.

But when it finally came to the portion of the video that deals with my plasma cutter, the instruction was all of about 10 seconds in length. This is not because the topic was not covered well, but rather because the simplicity of the install did not require more. In about 5 minutes the plasma cutter was wired up, and I summarily mounted it into the holder on the PlasmaCAM to prepare it for test cutting.

My final task, after wiring and mounting the plasma torch, was to provision a dedicated PC to handle all of the computer control functions of the system. I purchased a brand new PC to dedicate to the PCAM.

I systematically deleted all the pre-installed crap (AOL, MS Office trial, MS Works, etc.) using the Add/Remove Programs that came pre-loaded on the machine. I then installed a firewall, anti-virus software and a Linksys wireless NIC. Finally I installed the PlasmaCAM software.

Now, all of this went very smoothly with the exception of one little thing. Although the PlasmaCAM software instructed me to log into my computer’s BIOS and set the parallel port to EPP 1.9, that particular setting did not work for me. A quick call to the tech support line, however, and George had me switch the setting to SPP and everything began working immediately.

After spending a little time setting up and tweaking the machine’s settings, I was able to make a very nice cutout after only the 3rd try. I consider this quite a testament to the simplicity of the use of this machine. I had anticipated a much longer learning curve, but it seems that I’m already able to use the machine, so my loyal art fans out there will start seeing photos of new art designs I have in the works very soon!

Edit: I also added a review of the PlasmaCAM sales video which many people have found useful for separating fact from fiction.

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Most people are notorious procrastinators when it comes to emergency preparedness. This is why you can go to any grocery or hardware store to witness a complete panic in action the day before a major storm hits… or the day after a terrorist attack.

Well, among the things you might need, a small emergency radio should be near the top. Let’s face it, information is crucial to decision making during an emergency.

Radio Shack is now offering a compact emergency radio called the FR300, cobranded by the American Red Cross, for $49.00. It offers a number of excellent features:

• It’s small – 6.5″ x 6″ x 2.5″
• It receives AM / FM / Weather band and TV band frequencies.
• It has a built in LED flashlight.
• It has an emergency siren.
• It will run off of a 110v outlet, internal batteries, or in the worst case off a built in hand crank.
• It will charge a cell phone if your battery dies.

So, now that you’re thinking about it why don’t you do your future self a favor and pick one of these up. You never know… it may one day save your life.

EDIT: March 22, 2010 – The FR300 is no longer available but you can check out newer models and others at Radio Shack.

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Today a dream came true. For about two years now I’ve been planning, comparing, procrastinating… but today my new CNC Plasma Cutting machine arrived.

After comparing a wide variety of machines including DynaCNC, PlasmaCAM, Practical CNC, TorchMate, Dynatorch, and MultiCam, I settled on the PlasmaCAM for the following reasons:

• The machine breaks down and ships in a container approximately 5′ x 2′ x 2′. Although it weighs 380 lbs, they shipped it to a Dallas distribution center from Denver for under $250. It arrived in less than 48 hours and I took my trailer to the distribution facility where they loaded it for me. Once home, I was able to uncrate it and move the parts into my garage for assembly by myself.
  
• PlasmaCAM is the 900lb Gorilla in the “hobby” CNC plasma cutting market. They have a huge installed user base, and there are many people who are quite active on the Yahoo groups PlasmaCAM Users Group and PlasmaCAM Technical Forum.
  
• The control software is supposed to be some of the easiest around to use. And although I’m an expert users the last thing I want is another software learning curve.
• The machine will work perfectly with my Hypertherm 1000 plasma cutter with the handheld torch.

There are a few drawbacks.

• This machine is not as big as I’d like. But then again, some of the larger machines weigh over 700lbs and their shipping weight is 1600 lbs. Rather difficult to move without a forklift handy.
• This machine does not natively support a routing head, which I would have really liked to have.

Still, I intend to work this beast like crazy and already have designs I’ve been waiting for a year to cut.

Here is the initial table setup process in a nutshell. First I must say that the setup DVD that comes with the machine is possibly the best instruction manual I’ve ever encountered. I took my laptop to the garage and watched the DVD as I completed the install. It took me a total of 3 hours from crate to completion, and I did it by myself in 100 degree heat.

The crating was amazingly efficient and extremely solid. They thought of everything! They even used different colored screws so that you could easily tell which ones to unscrew while uncrating. Now, the video talked about how to uncrate the machine, but it was packed in the crate so by the time you see that you’ve probably already taken everything out. No matter, it was very intuitive.


The video walked you through every step of the assembly.

1. First, you build the frame which holds the material support slats.
2. Then you loosely bolt on the legs and flip the table over.
3. The material support slats are then inserted into the table frame.
4. The video instructs you how, and which bolts to tighten as you begin to firm things up.
5. Next the gantry rails go on, and the gantry slide into the rails and is bolted in place.
6. The cable swing arm is installed (which will keep the cables out of the cutting heads way)
7. Then the torch head holder connects to the gantry.
8. Finally, everything is tightened up and checked for clearances.

My machine went together very smoothly and easily (keeping in mind that I am a skilled worker). In fact, it was much better than I expected.

Now, I’m not done yet. Next I have to build a computer and a mobile stand so that I can move my PC which will control the machine in between my office and the garage. After the PlasmaCAM PC is ready, I’ll hook it to the machine and run through some sort of set up diagnostics… and then I need to do some special wiring to hook up this machine to my Plasma Torch so that the machine can tell it when to turn on and off.

Stay tuned to see how things go as the saga continues. And don’t worry; once the machine is fully operational I’ll be posting demonstration videos of it in all it’s glory. (I feel like the emperor talking about the completion of the Death Star!)

Edit: I also added a review of the PlasmaCAM sales video which many people have found useful for seperating fact from fiction.

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