Not so budget cut price plasma cutters

[MrFluffy]

Ugh http://cgi.ebay.fr/DECOUPEUR-PLASMA...yZ118549QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

900e is about 650 quid. For a cut90, which you can buy in the uk for 269 quid...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....113743&ssPageName=STORE:PROMOBOX:NEWLIST#LIST

And you people in the uk thought you got stiffed on prices sometimes...

Ill import one mesself from china next month, but I wonder how many poor sods pay mr french ebayer 650 quid for a chinese knockoff...

 

[irondarren]

60 amp plasma is very high for single phase 240v, normal uk, EU built stuff is 40amps max. wonder how they get 60amps on a plasma, unsafely i guess

 

[Drains]

60 amp plasma is very high for single phase 240v, normal uk, EU built stuff is 40amps max. wonder how they get 60amps on a plasma, unsafely i guess

I think the main problem with that 60 Amps isn't safety, but getting a 9Kva supply to the thing.

Price wise, it's worth remembering the additional postage cost which puts the machine up by £105, then the likely customs bonus which will put the thing up to almost £500.

And then there's the laddie in France selling the "expensive" ones, that you could probably return failed machines to.

So his price is probably reasonable, sort of. Not that i'd buy one!

 

[MrFluffy]

Price wise, it's worth remembering the additional postage cost which puts the machine up by £105, then the likely customs bonus which will put the thing up to almost £500.

And then there's the laddie in France selling the "expensive" ones, that you could probably return failed machines to.

So his price is probably reasonable, sort of. Not that i'd buy one!

Euro sockets are rated at 16amps not 13 and its also common to have high current sockets in the workshop etc, 30amps I think they are rated. I have some 3 phase and high current sockets in my workshop, but it is fed by a hefty 3 phase cable. Id prefer the plasma in 3 phase instead of single to be honest, to lower the current draw per phase.

As for the box shifter in france, you reckon he'd honor the warantee he slaps on the stuff as he gets it out his container?
Customer service is notoriously appalling in France, and that has been my experience that the reputation is understated if anything.
Sorry about the rant following, but its a personal daily bugbear for me..
Even in large stores you can end up in a major row getting a genuine fault resolved and theres little point in taking it up the chain as theres a whole culture of it, and you often end up without the goods for a few months while some "expert" checks it out at your expense if you really dig your heels in, as a deterrent to having the audacity to return something again.
I refused to sign off the insurance repairs to a car once as the bonnet was twisted still (and I used to be a professional vehicle inspector for a large motor manufacturer in the uk, so Im not a halfwit in these matters), and after some months they introduced me to the "expert" who asked me what was twisted about it, and I pointed out the reason I was refusing was because it was twisted, and they had obviously since straightened the warped bonnet in a vice. easily spotted because they hadn't padded the jaws and left teeth marks along its front edge which matched the vice in their workshop on inspection. The garage still denied this, until I asked them to explain how come the bare metal patches where the vice had bit, actually had no rust in them as they were so recent.
They grudgingly touched in the chips and polished them back to a halfway acceptable standard if you was a blind one legged cobbler looking in poor light, then before they would release the car to me, I had to sign a form saying I would never ever take a vehicle to them, or any other renault dealership in the region. I sold the car later on, and they refused to work on it for the new owner because it had been once owned by me! Customer is king, yeah right...
And it doesn't get any better on ebay.fr trust me. Ive been burnt a bit too many times for my liking...

Ive bought things already direct from china, and they've had no customs charges attached and theyre always happy to respond and the damn things always turn up and matched the descriptions. Its sad when they understand customer service better than the locals, but thats the way it is. If I had any great confidence that a local seller would improve the transaction by acting properly, it wouldn't bother me to pay a bit more and have a semblance of backup.

 

[MrFluffy]

60 amp plasma is very high for single phase 240v, normal uk, EU built stuff is 40amps max. wonder how they get 60amps on a plasma, unsafely i guess

I assumed that was 60amp at a lower output voltage after it had been through the transformer. Ugh, Ill have to look around for a good used 3 phase one, Im current barred at the supply to 25a per phase...

 

[Drains]

I enjoyed your rant immensely Mr F. Always good to be educated in the ways of the world....

My own experiences in France have not compared with yours (but I don't live there), although when working on a big engineering project it became clear that everybody took their positions very seriously but their responsibilities not at all, and that the culture of bureaucracy is used very efficiently, but only for shifting blame. All other aspects seem designed to manufacture work to justify existence.

It's funny how in Britain we sometimes criticise ourselves for adopting aspects of american culture, but at least in the States, the customer is king. Here, slightly less so and it seems the further east you go , the more the seller rules.

 

[snowcat]

Excellent, I had a freind who paid the best part of £40,000 for a machine that was in France, one problem end of July, August the whole place shuts down, September is there post holiday blues so bureaucracy is double, 10 weeks later it arives from not Mongola but Paris, Cretins.

I am embrace the day when customer service is a good as the US, Theres a reason why Holiday in Utah and not the alps, and its not because of the wonderfull US food.

 

[MrFluffy]

Tell me about that one snowy, Ive been scouring machinery dealers, and have spotted 5 lathes that were in budget, and I quite liked. So I fired off mails to the dealers, asking what the specs were, if any geometry tests were ran etc.
Out of the 5, one replied to me. When I mailed back asking him what actual model it was and if they had facility to load their end, he didn't bother answering.

I ended up buying a Harrison in england as the seller was far more interested in selling it, actually bothered to answer my questions and instilled confidence in me about it and his ethics. Its arriving on a europallet this weekend, and the cost is far far cheaper than buying a local one...
Oh and I put 400 miles on my van going to see private sellers lathes, and each one described as perfect turned out to be fit for scrap and nothing more, and yet were top money still!

On the flip side, we made the mistake of trying to auction off one of our cars, two months prev it had a new engine, clutch, water pump, cat the lot because mrs f said she wanted to keep it when it shed a cambelt. I say mistake, because it didnt even fetch what i paid for the engine + parts, and we were bombarded with questions about every tiny details, and requests for photographs of the boot carpet, and ashtray and glovebox etc. Obviously the concept of a honest description for a honest price was a bit novel... The guy who eventually won demanded we make a 120 mile journey to collect him from a station (at our cost) and couldn't make it at the weekends or in evenings and wanted to pay by cheque (when the auction clearly said cash only please, dont agree dont bid). Eventually after 15 emails requesting more pictures, he sent one saying he didnt want it as we had not specified it had a aftermarket stereo in place of the ford one. On a 12 year old mondeo... Its sat outside as I type, I said to mrs f id rather torch it than go through all that again. And its only insured 3rd party...

Im ranting again arent I. On the flip side, the foods great, the roads are empty and the house prices are cheaper, and theres hardly any crime where i live. I just never ever want to have to do business here...

 

[bgarvanman]

Hi Mr F,

Just wondering what type of harrison did you buy ? I got a quote on a new M300 the other day €10,335 !! not including chucks etc final price with digi readout €14,000 ouch, quality machine though.

New lathes can be bought for bout €6000 complete, Chinese (very poor castings)or Taiwanese (supposedly not bad)

Have my eye on a 2nd hand Colchester triumph 2000 motor a bit big though

dinnyb

 

[MrFluffy]

A old (1962) l5a gap bed. Its the 11" swing model and I already had a raft of tooling/T slot boring tables etc for it as I had a l5 9" previously. It seemed a shame to throw it all away and start again.
Now its here, its not badly worn as the later 11" lathes had induction hardened bedways and it passes fine the two collars test with 0.0003" runout over about 10" gauge length, its a tad worse as it runs onto the gap section (the gap piece sits minutely too high) but Ill address that by scraping in the gap when I can be bothered. The only two issues to date are the 3 jaw it arrived wearing is terrible (but got 4 others anyway) and one jaw runs out and even when reground it wont repeat as the scroll is too worn, and the toolholder is missing the locking cone so when taking a heavy cut with a carbide tool, if it digs in it can shift which breaks the insert, but I plan on replacing the toolpost with a aloris anyway. I could just turn up a cone if I was keeping it.

The other niggle (which I knew about when buying) is it is single phase and no suds pump package arrived, but Ive nicked the suds and 3 phase motor off the other lathe to give me 1500rpm top speed and flood cooling, and I just won a vfd for it for 60e on ebay so that lot will be going on in a few weeks along with one of these :-
http://www.yadro.de/index.html

The bright spot was opening the gear cover and finding the ultra rare 127T metric screwcutting translation change gears, after the seller described it as having no screwcutting gears with it. I think so far it stands me in under 1000e total. Different league, but Im enjoying using it to make things, instead of spending half my shed time trying to get it to cut properly like I was the old one.

I probably couldnt justify a M300, even a worn out old shagged one, but its a nice lathe. I looked at a 2000 but Id have had to knock through into the next workshop to fit it in next to the other kit thats already in there
Im going to buy it a 6jaw griptru for xmas...

 

[bgarvanman]

I have seem pics of the L5A in www.lathes.co.uk, all in all a nice useful machine.

That link to the DRO supplier is very interesting ! If i can pick up a nice m300 or a colchester student second hand a retrofit might work out nice !

dinnyb

 

[MrFluffy]

The shumatech might be of more interest if you dont have a few old laptops lying round!
http://www.shumatech.com/products/dro-350/index.htm