murex tradescut 10 am I mad?? (just bought it £50 ebay)

[peter99]

Yes, marry in haste repent at leisure! I decided against buying a cheap chinese plasma and to wait until I could afford a decent one. Anyway this;

Condition: Used
THREE PHASE PLASMA CUTTER, WAS WORKING FINE BUT I LOST SHROUD OFF TORCH COULD REALLY DO WITH NEW TORCH. BEING SOLD AS SPARES OR REPAIR BECAUSE I HAVE NOT USED IT FOR SOME TIME.
seller has 150 feedbacks, 100% positive.

came up tonight and as I have 3 phase from monday I thought bugger it, I'll take a punt on it. described as working fine when last used but torch shroud missing, and sounds as if torch is old. Do I need to go to the loony bin? I think it is worth a play around with for £50.

What do you all think?

 

[Robotstar5]

Jammy Bu**er

It's a respected brand Murex / Esab so spares and backup shouldn't be a problem, I'm sure DIYwelding or Weldequip can advise you on whats needed to get up and running.

 

[Archie]

I've a Tradescut 5 which is knackered to the point I can't be bothered to fix it (dead capacitors, leaking air somewhere, ...). I'll check it's not gone on the skip yet but if it hasn't you'd be welcome to the torch if it's the same. It's not in the best of nick but appears to have all it's accoutrements.

 

[Drains]

I saw that Murex earlier this evening. Toyed with parting with some hard-earned myself, but some punter beat me to it!

Peter, I hope you're risk pays off, and yes, it was a good risk to take. It's a 20mm cut jobbie, so if it works you'll have a few hundred quids worth of cutter. If it doesn't, you'll have to sell it as spares or repair and take the drop on the transport!

Good luck!

 

[peter99]

Archie, yes that would be great if you have any bits, really great. I'll obviously sort out postage and packing and send you some friday night vouchers too.

Drains, i looked at it and thought if I think about it I'll leave it and someone else will nick it anyway, so after a 'cup of tea' cooling off period pressed the buttons of doom. saw you reaching for the mouse so had to act quickly.....
(might be smiling on the other side of my face when i lift the cover and it's empty)

 

[Archie]

I'll find out what's going on with it and let you know. No need for beer tokens if it's skip bound.

 

[peter99]

Thanks Archie. Picked it up today, was in a fabrication shop. Really friendly helpful bloke. Anyway he bought it at auction 3 years ago, has hardly used it and is tidying out (was all genuine I think).
He plugged it in and it ran ok. The torch needs all the consumables on the end of the hand piece (held together with tape and burnt tips etc) and as there wasn't a compressor couldn't try it. He remembered there was an air leak inside.
So it seems if I can sort out the torch issue, sort the air leak and check there is an air flow metre somewhere I think it will work fine.
Anyway I mentioned I was building a walk in cage to protect my tools in the garage, had made the frame but needed some strong mesh or similar to line it out and he gave me 20 square metres of it for a £5 drink, even cut it into 8'x4' sheets to go on to the roof rack! What a gentleman!
eBay's not all bad.
Shall open the case up tomorrow and have a good look at it.

 

[simon718]

result mate! hope ya get it sorted

 

[madkayaker]

post some pics of the cage sound like a good idea

 

[peter99]

Shall do, be a week or so before I get it sorted. A cage gives you a few mins if your lucky between getting inside and the alarm sounding and the chavs getting to your stuff. stops the 'smash and grab' raid as long as your near your workshop.

 

[chunkolini]

That cage sounds a good idea. Here is another, put the chavs inside it and play the opposite of kerplunk with 8mm rebar, rusty of course.

Chunko'.

 

[madkayaker]

i have a cage in the back of the van working on same idea to try to stop smash and grab. In new workshop have bolted down lock plate and will use big chain and lock.

 

[graffian]

I don't think you will get any spares or back up, I have the manual if you want a copy. Infact if you mail them with a question about it's parentage I doubt they can tell you who made it, seriously.

I bought mine on ebay 4 years ago. The bloke I bought it from bought it and then couldn't get tips, he mailed everyone he could find an email address and plasma on the same page! When I mailed people they were mailing back things like 'we have told you several times already blah blah';-) Basically the torch is obsolete and he was told getting an adapter to fit another torch woudl be very difficult.
What I found was the torch wasn't the original Telwin[?] one, according to someone who serviced Murex stuff.

Anyway I bought a trafimet torch[the wonders of ebay] and then sold the old one[call me uncle ebay]. I made an adapter and buy elcheapo trafimet
torch spares.

I want it for 5mm plate mostly and it slices through clean plate lovly. I cut something out of a bit of skanky old 1/4 plate my brother dug out of the garden and it was like using a junior hacksaw. It chops throu 10mm engine plates just like the 5mm though. I run it of a phase converter and it's not tuned for it, so I don't think it performs as good as it should. Something that may be effecting it is the torch, I got the 100A one and Hazel at trafimet reconed it would be better with the smaller one.

 

[peter99]

Thanks for info Graffian, copy of manual would be v. handy, I have PM'd you with address and shall pay p&p etc obviously. Have poss offer of another torch (see near beggining of thread) if it is still servicable. Also weldequip being helpful, need to send pic of torch when I get my camera back from the old man. Shall let you know how I get on if it works. Hurrah for Ebay, never a dull moment!

 

[graffian]

Manual is a pdf. I don't think it's on the BOC/Esab obsolete manual list, I badgered them untill they photocopied it and e-mailed it to me, or maybe that was one of the other obsolete bit of murex kit I own. I will have a look for it. And add a link to it.
The manual is HERE

 

[peter99]

Thanks for the pdf, really helpfull. I'm determined to get it running, it's become personal!