Plama Cutters

[Scott in Bellingham]

Im looking at buying a Plasma cutter soon , would like to only biy one and not regret it later, looking at the Hypertherm 45 looks like about $1800

would like to set it up on a CNC table later, anyone have any imput on such stuff? or experience with them thanks Scott

[monstaru]

We use Miller products at work.It really depends on what thickness you want to cut, your power source, and how big of a compressor you have.

cheers

You can buy a brand new Miller spectrum 375 for about $1300 here locally.

If you look around used,make sure that you get one WITHOUT an internal compressor.Those do not blow worth a ************..

 

The 375 will do up to 3/8ths.Don't really have experience with tables, but it is likely unless you go pretty big, you will have to buy another anyway.

cheers

http://www.millerwelds.com/products/plasma/

[Idasho]

Really depends on how much you want to spend.

 

Ive been more than happy with my chinese plasma. It performs great, at a fraction of the cost of a miller or hypertherm. It is a GiantTech Slice50D.

 

Shipped to my door with a 50pack of consumables for $400

 

I have no need for a table, so all is free-hand or using guides.

 

Regardless of what you get. Once you have a plasma, things get SO much easier.

[djellum]

we used hypotherms at the college I worked at I believe. they were a pretty good unit, compact and effective. im assuming you want it for cutting alluminum and just to cut down on gas costs and time?

 

We used saws and other devices for thick stuff but you can do most normal jobs with them no problem. check into an air dryer if the units dont have one, they help a lot for longevity of parts. the shop air had a lot of moisture in it.

 

also make sure you understand non tranferring and transferring before you buy. theres a major difference in operation on specific meterials, though most steels, stainless, and alluminum wont care. basically one is like an arc welder and needs the piece to be conductive, and one is like a torch and puts out its cutting flame regardless.

 

CNC plasma has some other needs besides the hardware. the scanning and software that came stock with the one I used sucked big time. It was very complicated to work with, and you had to go in and manually fix things every time you imported a drawing. look into a control box that will accept a standard format like a cad format or solidwerks or something. you have to factor in the software cost of that, but its worth it. i would think that the small hypotherms would be small for that, but it all depends on what thickness your cutting.

 

one of the nice things about plasmas is you can get torch ends that just rest on the piece to autogap. this way you can make templates so if your just wanting to cut the SJR into strut tops you can likely just make a stencil and cut way down on time and energy without buying equipment.

[Mugs]

MILLER

 

End of discussion. You get what you pay for, and if your gonna pay it better be a MILLER