Industrial machines

Where I work (structural steel fabrication shop) we use three industrial machines to cut all of our plate steel connections. The main machine I program for is a Peddinghaus FPB-1500:

It's a CNC-controlled machine with a 200-amp plasma torch and three 177-ton hydraulic cylinder hole punches. It will punch up to 1.75" holes and cut through up to 1.25" steel. For heavier pieces, we have two machines that are actually one. The cutting machinery runs on tracks over two tables: one is a water-table and uses another plasma torch. This table is again good up to 1.25" steel. The other table uses oxy-acetylene and will cut through steel up to I think 4" thick. This machine is also CNC-controlled. I draw all the steel plate connections in AutoCAD. The .dxf files are then imported into MTC Pronest, which translates the files into a language the machine can understand. It's incredibly fast and accurate for structural work, but not quite as accurate as a Flowjet or laser would be. Tolerances are generally within 1/32".

~Adam