Hello,
I am a teacher in a school and I am interested in purchasing the CrossFire XR CNC Plasma Table for my program. Unfortunately, they are denying the request due to the potential that it is not Industry-Standard. Would anyone on here, especially from the South Dakota region, be willing to contact me to be a support to show that this is an industry standard piece of equipment?
So they are basically saying, you need to speed a ton more money and then they will approve it? I am curious as to what they mean by industry standard? That might help in formulating a response to them. Guessing they are wanting something that might be in the local or surrounding shops, so a kid would have familiarity walking out the door. I am no industry expert, but maybe a bit more information here might help us help you in your quest. I personally think the XR would be a great starting point, especially if all are new to CNC Plasma.
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Yes, that is exactly what I am needing. We are trying to prepare students to be college & career ready when they leave high school. So, showing that it is something that is used in industry.
Literally all the tools (CAD, CAM) used to OPERATE the CrossFire ARE industry standard and are valuable marketable skills. Are you teaching our students how to DESIGN a CNC Plasma Cutter or how to USE one. They’ll learn this latter with this equipment.
The controller box for the platform is CrossFire unique, but so is virtually all other commercial CNC equipment. The building blocks and components are Industry Standard.
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That’s the problem with the world today. Everyone expects everything to work off of one big button that they do not have to exert themselves to get results. Children need to be taught to be problem solvers. think outside the box, and adapt to change.
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I’ll agree with TomWS, the CAD / CAM skillset one can learn on the Crossfire can easily be adapted to any other platform. I broke into plasma on a ESAB table in the early 2000’s. CAD (be it Autocad, FreeCAD, Solidworks, Inventor, Fusion) is basically the same. The CAM aspect can differ depending on the machinery, but the skillset is transferable. Additionally, learning how plasma operates (heights, speeds, amperage, consumables) to achieve good results is platform independent.
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Piling on with the others. Not only are the CAD/CAM skills transferrable amongst plasma CNC machines, they’re also good for CNC routers or lasers as well. For 2D work I can use the same design on any of my machines and make it out of any media. I can also take sheetmetal 3D projects that I cut & bend and use the same design file on acrylic on the laser. I just use a different bender for the metal design vs the acrylic.
I’ll often prototype using cardboard on the laser before trying it on expensive steel.
The only thing I do is run the CAM post-processor that’s unique to each. All my design work is reused.
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I would say operating off g code is industry standard.
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If there is anything we can do to support you in the quest for this funding, please reach out to our support team.
Maybe they will think the name ShopSabre is more “Industry Standard”? 
I agree with The BrownFox. G code is the industry standard.
Tell them you got your hands on some Classified documents (they’ll know where) that say Langmuir will soon be the industry standard. 
Seriously, list up industry standards for CAD and CAM and show them the checked boxes Langmuir Systems covers and they won’t have an argument.
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@Bigdaddy2166 @Wsidr1 You two are getting misguided on what the Admins are looking for. If someone is buying a CNC Mill, the Admins would want to know, is it the SAME Mill that ALL of the industry uses? If yes, sure, good investment for the students.
In this case what is the Industry Standard for CNC Plasma cutters? Is there one? Dunno. If not, then easy to say it’s as ‘standard’ as the other others. If Hypertherm has a CNC table, then, I suspect THAT might be the standard. But, again, the Admins are wanting to line their student’s CVs with ‘I used XXX system’ where XXX is what all the big companies use.
This gets back to an earlier comment that people are too focused on NAMES and not KNOWLEDGE. I want student Y familiar with Product Z, not, I want to hire someone who understands ANY of the available systems…
Sorry for the rant… 
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I see the light . Tom… I get it. Resume says operating Tormach VM5 for three years…
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Yup! You, indeed, see the light.
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This is crap. There’s been a maker revolution going on 15 years or more, tooling available to students today is inexpensive, accurate and accessible (Fusion 360, 3D printers, GRBL, desktop milling machines, Arduino, sub $300 welders, near-zero cost PCBs, Raspberry Pi, OpenCV, Python, etc). The Crossfire is running GRBL attached to solid mechanical platform. What’s not ‘standard’ about a 3 axis plasma cutter with THC with a G Code interpreter that implements a subset of the NIST RS274/NGC.
Universities, like JU Engineering | Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Fla., are transforming to a “Design-Based Curriculum” that involves all the maker tooling mentioned above. I was on the JU steering committee for a while.
Good luck working with the dinosaurs to get funding.
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@holla2040 and those dinosaurs are the same ones that think trades are a waste of time and that you need a degree in some crazy field
@holla2040 My grandpa was the department head of civil engineering at a local major university. One of his biggest frustrations was that with our current education model you have research professors instructing undergraduate courses. He felt that having a PhD doesn’t necessarily make you a teacher. He also felt that before becoming an instructor you should have a fair amount of practical experience.
In my college experience the instructor made a huge difference. There were a handful that had actual real world engineering experience before pursuing their PhD and they were fantastic. Taught you exactly what you needed to know and how it applied in the industry. Some of them, I am sure were brilliant researchers… but terrible lecturers and teachers. Basically, they would put a handout on the overhead camera and read directly off of it. You would be just as well off if they put the handout online to read.
I think that there is some value in our current system, but we would produce much more qualified engineers if we did allot more time in internships and less time listening to lectures.
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Is it possible you could convince the admins that the specific equipment is not the critical aspect, based on:
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industry standards are in flux, they change, this years “standard” equipment might not be next year
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the underlying knowledge, experience and understanding of the general equipment and processes is most important (e.g. a Ford V8 vs a Chevy V8 if teaching how to repair engines)
3)The equipment (e.g. ShopSabre vs. Torchmate, vs. Langmuir vs. whatever) is simply a chassis for a system, meaning they all have the same similar components, a processor that executes CNC G code, stepper motors, Plasma Cutters, CAD/CAM software.
In other words, possibly try and explain and move the conversation away from specific equipment to processes, with a nod also to how these industries (and hence the current popular “standard” equipment) is in rapid flux and change over time ?
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I agree the closest to industry standard here on a plasma table is the fact that it uses Gcode. Nothing is going to remain standard hardware wise ever. Re-voicing what has already been relayed here…the key aspects the educators should be concerned with is,
is this equipment that requires standard workflow practices involving
CAD, CAM, Problem solving, and does it have a wide array of applications in the work environment that will benefit these kids long-term!
Also, most importantly is it cool enough to engage the students enough to encourage pursuing that particular skill set that the equipment can help them learn.
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