How Does Feed Rate Affect Cut Quality On a Plasma Table?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- I have been testing out the effect of changing the feed rate on our plasma table to see what it does to the quality of the cut. All cuts were from the same mild steel plate at 130A and I changed the feed rates in 5% increments from 100% down to 70%.
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Everyone likes new stuff. Thanks for the video keep on keeping on.
Very interesting. I had never really thought about this before
Um. 130 amps???? Us hobby boys have to take out a second mortgage to get even a 65 amp cutter. This video is for industrial folks. :-)
Hi Stuart.Very good info about the cuts and nice images of the cutting action.Thank you.
Hey, I have one of these on my desks that someone gave me!!! LOL.. Never knew you had a TH-cam Channel!!
Well hey there! I didn't know you had one either. Time to do some binge watching!
All that water splashing about looks more like a water jet cutter than a plasma one, does it interfere with the cut?
Nope. It actually keeps the fumes down quite a bit and the parts are cool enough to handle right after cutting most of the time. It just depends on how massive the part is.
Were you using compressed air or some other gas?
Just compressed air. We can also run it with Oxygen or Nitrogen.
Stuart, I have never owned a plasma cutter... But back in the 70's and 80's of the last century, I was a welder for a living. I got very good at using an oxygen and acetylene cutting torch. I was called a human cutting machine by the guys I worked with. Not bragging, but I thought I would share what I learned by trial and error. I never used any tip larger than a 000. Even cutting plate and pipe up to 3/4 inch thick. I found that turning the pressure up had a lot more effect on the cut than speed. Although when cutting anything very thick I did have to slow down somewhat. But if you get the heat up hot enough to make the metal melt, then shoot a high pressure stream of air at it, the metal will cut like butter and look like it was cut on a bandsaw. and another thing I am remembering is the stream of air has to be extremely strait. Meaning the cutting tip had to be perfectly clean. Any turbulence on the air hitting the molten metal will cause a horrible looking cut. Lack of pressure and turbulence in the air stream is what causes the slag. Some people call it dross...
Thanks for the input!
My pleasure!@@StuartdeHaro
Stuart, I have founding running a Torchmate table [Circa 2003] and a 100 amp Thermadyne Plasma
for 3 years , that the worst thing to do is run full amperage and try and adjust the speed for a better
cut.....if you run too slow, the plasma arc will hunt for a ground and will give sawtooth cut....also on
thin material, the rapid movement may cause vibration in the table....our table was a 6x20 foot...
Manufacturers tend to exaggerate their numbers....
I worked at another shop after the 3 years on that machine, who owned the same table....
I was not allowed to use it, as the 'engineers' knew more....but I got the dubious job of fixing the parts
they cut, we cut a lot of 1/2' A36......and man, they did not know how to nest parts for you know what...
after getting rid of the bevel, and it was on different sides due to the erratic placement of the nest....
the part had a hole punched 1/2" in center, [part was 3x3"] and then countersunk was place using a mill....or drill press
due to the punched hole not being placed in same spot on all parts due to the beveled kerf....it made it very difficult
to center the countersink.....we would make 500 or more in a batch.....
hope this may help in some way, best regards, Paul in Florida ...excuse typos as it is 3:30 am....
Thanks for such a thorough comment. I’ll try to put your suggestions to good use.
I have a small homeowner table and just got a new hypertherm 85 with a machine torch and it came with a feed rate chart. I never realized how terribly slow I was running before with my old plasma cutter. It seems way too fast for my liking. I will try turning down the amps and slowing up some. I don’t think my table has the rigidity to handle these high feed rate. Thanks.
I only have the caveman manually operated plasma cutter available to me.
That's alright. That's more than I have at home.
@@StuartdeHaro Don't get me wrong, plasma cutters are great tools if you have the need. On the flip side they are high on the one trick pony scale.
Tell them to get their money back. That cut quality is horrible.
Do you have any recommendations on improving the cut quality on a plasma table? I'm certainly open to suggestions.
@@StuartdeHaroit seems awfully slow to me for that many amps on that thin of material, a quick google search showed almost double that. I just picked up some 5/8" plate cut with a plasma and the finish was superb
@@EitriBrokkr I'll see if I can speed it up a bit. I had the feed set to optimal according to Hypertherm and I know I couldn't speed it up past 100% on the fly, but I should be able to speed it up in the software.