Thread: Cut-40 Plasma cutter

Were did you get it from RC?
I bought a Cut-50 last week from a mob in WA. Yet to receive and test it, but looking forward to it.

I got this one from Deals Direct...

At the time it was $239 + $21 delivery...

HEEELLL, that sounds like a damn fine thing.

Who'da thaught you could get a plasma cutter for $300.

I've always wonted one....and with one of these things would get a bit quieter and cheaper round here...less need for thr grinder and the gass axe



So I just ordered one...the price has gone up though..its gon'a cost me about $320 delivered.

But hell that is cheap metalworking.

we'll see hoe it goes.

cheers

Makes a Hypertherm 45 look expensive thats for sure!

Must resist......oh bugger it!

picked m ine up from the post office today......unpacked it but no chance to try it out till later in the week.

looks to be a fair thing...comes with an air regulator, but no hose...not even a little bit to go from the reg to the back of the unit.

It comes with a hand held welding shield.....would have to be the cheapest looking welding shiled I have ever seen.

ANYway...more later in the week.

cheers

Ueee you will like it I love mine but it sometimes randomly stops working

To all Plasma cutter users.
I cannot stress enough the need for clean, moisture and oil free air to get the best from your Plasma. The filter/regulators supplied on the machines are not adequate and combined with smaller home type compressors can lead to moisture finding its way into the torch which destroys tips and electrodes.
There are quite a few threads on this site dealing with moist compressed air, so I won't repeat them, but really do your homework on clean dry air and you will be amazed at the improvements.
My previous workplace had an old, worn out compressor and the "air" it provided, (too thick to breathe, too thin to swim in), meant that our 100A Lincoln Plasma was lucky to get 1 lineal meter of cut before the tips were knackered and its 25mm cut capacity was closer to 2.5mm. The same machine in another factory was getting a minimum 300 lineal meters quality cut before the tips were changed only because they felt they probably should, rather than needing to. The only difference was the air.

Originally Posted by Karl Robbers

To all Plasma cutter users.
I cannot stress enough the need for clean, moisture and oil free air to get the best from your Plasma. The filter/regulators supplied on the machines are not adequate and combined with smaller home type compressors can lead to moisture finding its way into the torch which destroys tips and electrodes. . . .

Thanks Karl. I vent my compressor every day but it could still be one of my problems. Can you recommend a dryer. Maybe one to suit a DIY and one to suit a professional?

Apart from the usual good practices, which no doubt you are following, I have had really good results with this filter despite the fact that my local pneumatics supplier spits on the ground and delivers a verbal tirade whenever they are mentioned.
http://www.machineryhouse.com.au/C492
They actually use a good old fashioned toilet roll as the filter medium and seem to do a really good job of secondary filtration. My own Plasma came fitted with one and I have not noticed the typical tip damage that dirty air causes, even when plasma gouging - which uses a lot more air through the 3mm orifice than the usual 1.1 or 1.3mm tips and supplied by a 17CFM compressor with the usual domestic sized receiver. You can buy them out of the US a fair bit cheaper if I remember correctly. A secondary air receiver with drain wouldn't be a bad idea either. As you would realise, we want to convert hot, moist air into cool, dry air. Even the addition of a long length of air hose installed on an incline back to a drain point can bring benefits
The ultimate is probably something like this. http://www.machineryhouse.com.au/C544
Some operations are just naturally hard on tips such as piercing thicker plates, particularly with smaller drag type torches.
What specific issues are you having with your Plasma Bob and what type is it?

Originally Posted by BobL

Thanks Karl. I vent my compressor every day but it could still be one of my problems. Can you recommend a dryer. Maybe one to suit a DIY and one to suit a professional?

THE single biggest improvement to any compressed air system is fitting a second reciever ( air tank).
I and several of my mates have been doing this for years and it drops moinsture and oil content in the air system out of sight and allows the moisture traps in the filter regs to work.

What the second reciever does is slows the air and allows it to cool.....this will drop most of the moisture in the second reciever.
Because tha air leaving the second reciever is much cooler than it is leaving the compressor the moisture traps in the filter regs are far more effective.

you do not need fancy filters or expensive driers.

before fitting the second reciever, I used to get water in my pipe system..to such an extent I had to drain the pipe system daily if I was using air tools....if not I had water pissing out the discharge ports in the air tools.

my system has a main regulator set at about 100PSI and a spraying regulator with a finer filter following the main filter on my spraying line.

the second reciever is so effecive that I hardly ever have to empty the water trap on the main regulator and I have never seen as much as a droplet of water on my spraying regulator.

My friends report similar results.

The tank does not need to be very big, and it can be one of those air tanks you can buy from the 4wd shops or just a tank off a dead compressor.

seriouly I can not overstate how much of an improvement a second reciever makes to any air system of any size.

cheers

Soundman,
I have no plasma cutter yet, but am redesigning my compressed air system and would like it to accept one.
Would you mind describing how a system with secondary tank would typically look?
I mean, now I have: compressor, tank, main regulator/filter, pipes, (optional secondary regulator), tool.
How would that be changed?

Thanks,
Peter

I have never seen a Plasma Cutter in my wanderings. From what you other fellas say, they are more than good. Would you be able to, say, make up a shape out of plywood and use the Plasma Torch to run around the edge of the plywood to cut a shape out of steel plate 12mm thick?
I did have oxy bottles and still have the hoses and gauges but the cost of the hire was getting ridiculous for small amount of cutting I do. I am embarking on a restoration of a WWII Jeep. It has some badly rusted areas which I thought Plasma may be a good medium to cut it out and prepare new sheet to weld in.
Any thoughts or guidance would be helpful

PS Are the tips for the Deals Direct machine easy to come-by?

Originally Posted by chambezio

I have never seen a Plasma Cutter in my wanderings. From what you other fellas say, they are more than good. Would you be able to, say, make up a shape out of plywood and use the Plasma Torch to run around the edge of the plywood to cut a shape out of steel plate 12mm thick?

Yep that's exactly what you can do with it.
You might want to not quite butt the torch up against the ply but if you used a bit of an offset it would be fine.

Originally Posted by Karl Robbers

What specific issues are you having with your Plasma Bob and what type is it?

The PC unit I have is a TokenTools 50A.

The tip just seems to get dirty quicker than I expected it would. I cut a couple of metres of clean 6mm plate last week and it just stopped working but started up fine again when I clean it up. From the direction of the cut lines through the material I know I am going too slow but if I speed up it doesn't seem to cut through cleanly. I haven't cut much with it and I think I just need to practice more with it. A couple of weeks back I found a 1m diameter x 1/4" steel plate by the side of the road. Its deeply pitted and rusty on one side so I think this might be my practice piece.

My compressor is a 19CFM 2 stage Clisby. There is ~10m (8 m inside the shed) of 1/2" galv pipe between the compressor and the PC so the water vapour has a good chance to cool down and condense before it gets to the PC. There is an additional drain tap about half way along and at the lowest point in the galv pipe which I open before I use the PC but since I started venting the compressor every day no water comes out of the other drain tap, well none that I can see.

Originally Posted by BobL

Yep that's exactly what you can do with it.
The PC unit I have is a TokenTools 50A.

The tip just seems to get dirty quicker than I expected it would. I cut a couple of metres of clean 6mm plate last week and it just stopped working but started up fine again when I clean it up. From the direction of the cut lines through the material I know I am going too slow but if I speed up it doesn't seem to cut through cleanly. I haven't cut much with it and I think I just need to practice more with it. A couple of weeks back I found a 1m diameter x 1/4" steel plate by the side of the road. Its deeply pitted and rusty on one side so I think this might be my practice piece.

Are you dragging the tip along the plate or using a standoff to give a gap between the tip and the plate? Usually the only time tips get dirty is if there is blow back of molten metal occurring.
From what I could see on the Token tools website, that machine has a 60 series torch and it would appear that the tips supplied are not of the drag type, meaning that you need to run a standoff. Drag tips usually have 4 little lugs that protrude down to give an air gap between the orifice and the work.
To answer the question of plywood templates, go right ahead and butt the torch up to the ply. I have quite a stock of such templates for fitting recessed "T" handle latches, rubber mounted tail lights and similar repetitive jobs. Plasma stack cuts really well too.
By the way, definitely do not put your gloved hand under a workpiece that you are cutting as a workmate of mine did ONCE. That 20,000 degree plasma stream goes right through welding gloves and finds a direct path to the brain box!