Hood
I am obsessed.
- Messages
- 16,937
- Location
- Carnoustie, Scotland
I finished building my CNC Plasma about Nov 2016 and although it has been great I have occasionally had issues.
I, fingers crossed, seem to have all these issues sorted now so thought I would post the simple things I have done just in case it helps someone else.
The problems were that the nozzles didn't seem to last for long before wearing at an angle.
Occasionally I would be cutting fine then it would only partially cut through and then after a bit cut fine again.
Problems with piercing, especially stainless but Aluminium and very occasionally steel. The blasted material would blow back and connect the nozzle to the material thus reducing the life of the nozzle.
First thing I thought was the culprit was water in the air, I am not so sure this was really as much of a problem as I initially thought as the amount was not great but obviously the less the better. I swapped over the compressors I had and used the bigger one from the workshop on the plasma. It seemed to help a bit but the problem soon came back even with draining the tank every day, so likely water wasn't really my issue.
I always cut with the plasma cranked right up, it is a 65Amp TecArc OptiCut and works well but I wondered if the nozzles were being worn out prematurely as they are 65Amp and I suspect the plasma may actually put out more than the 65Amp. The reason I suspect that is the cut capability quoted by TecArc is more than other comparable plasma cutters from the likes of Hypertherm.
So to test my theory I turned down the TecArc a smidgen and the life of the nozzle increased dramatically and now I am managing to get at least 3-4 times the amount of cutting done before I need to change the nozzle.
The last problem seems to have been solved by increasing the pierce time, I was tending to go by data out there for other machines, Hypertherm etc, as the info from TecArc is sadly rather lacking and the cut data I was promised has never materialised. As an example I used to set the pierce to pierce 12mm Alumium for 1 second but I have now doubled it and now I do not get any blow back of material onto the nozzle and the added pierce time doesn't seem to be having any adverse effect on the nozzle lifespan.
Stainless used to give me the biggest headache but with increasing the pierce time I seem to have eliminated my issues, I now pierce 16mm stainless for 3.5 seconds and it is working well, I just hope now that I have written this things keep working well but as I waited about 2 months before I posted, just in case, I think they should.
I, fingers crossed, seem to have all these issues sorted now so thought I would post the simple things I have done just in case it helps someone else.
The problems were that the nozzles didn't seem to last for long before wearing at an angle.
Occasionally I would be cutting fine then it would only partially cut through and then after a bit cut fine again.
Problems with piercing, especially stainless but Aluminium and very occasionally steel. The blasted material would blow back and connect the nozzle to the material thus reducing the life of the nozzle.
First thing I thought was the culprit was water in the air, I am not so sure this was really as much of a problem as I initially thought as the amount was not great but obviously the less the better. I swapped over the compressors I had and used the bigger one from the workshop on the plasma. It seemed to help a bit but the problem soon came back even with draining the tank every day, so likely water wasn't really my issue.
I always cut with the plasma cranked right up, it is a 65Amp TecArc OptiCut and works well but I wondered if the nozzles were being worn out prematurely as they are 65Amp and I suspect the plasma may actually put out more than the 65Amp. The reason I suspect that is the cut capability quoted by TecArc is more than other comparable plasma cutters from the likes of Hypertherm.
So to test my theory I turned down the TecArc a smidgen and the life of the nozzle increased dramatically and now I am managing to get at least 3-4 times the amount of cutting done before I need to change the nozzle.
The last problem seems to have been solved by increasing the pierce time, I was tending to go by data out there for other machines, Hypertherm etc, as the info from TecArc is sadly rather lacking and the cut data I was promised has never materialised. As an example I used to set the pierce to pierce 12mm Alumium for 1 second but I have now doubled it and now I do not get any blow back of material onto the nozzle and the added pierce time doesn't seem to be having any adverse effect on the nozzle lifespan.
Stainless used to give me the biggest headache but with increasing the pierce time I seem to have eliminated my issues, I now pierce 16mm stainless for 3.5 seconds and it is working well, I just hope now that I have written this things keep working well but as I waited about 2 months before I posted, just in case, I think they should.