plasma cutter ?

I looking at buying a plasma cutter I have never had one I have seen them work but have never had one in my shop I am looking at a Hobart Air Force 700i Plasma Cutter what do you guys think?[S

DavidJ said:

I looking at buying a plasma cutter I have never had one I have seen them work but have never had one in my shop I am looking at a Hobart Air Force 700i Plasma Cutter what do you guys think?[S

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I think your life will get easier and your quality of work will improve...

Best thing I can tell is your going with a name brand. Who can say which one is best but an important step is chosing one you can get fixed when it breaks, everything breaks.
if you cannot hardly afford it in the first place...You really cannot afford to replace it regularly.

Hypertherm is they way to go in plasma cutting. The consumables last longer and are less expensive than other brands. We have two of them in our shop. A small 40 amp cutter that was on our CNC table. We just bought an 80 amp machine for the table. Both Hypertherm. The 40 amp is a Powermax 600 and the 80 amp is a Powermax 1250.

We upgraded to the bigger machine to get more duty cycle. The small cutter would cut for 15 minutes and shut down it was over heated. The bigger machine will run for hours and not shut down.

You also have to have clean DRY air. The plasma will not tolerate any moisture at all.

These guys are right on the money. I have three machines. My first was a Snapon, I bought used to see if I could really use one. Then I bought an Esab. It wirked great for yeears, but it broke down in the middle of a job, So I bought a Hypertherm while it was being fixed. The Hypertherm is the best so far. But there are a few things the Esab did a little better. I still use my torch all the time.

Would this one do what I want? the heavest I will be cutting 1/4 or 3/8 most of the time. Looks like this one will cut up to 1' but not very fast if I am reading it right.Hypertherm Powermax 45 Plasma Cutter I will have to see if my parts store can get the tips that is where I get my supplies for my miller welder. As always there is a learning curve.LOL

I've got to learn to use the one we have. It is a ThermaDynamics that is rated up to 3/8, but the few times I have used it I hated the sparks it threw. I'm still wearing burn scars on the tops of both feet from sparks going down my shoes. Everybody swears by them and when I watch people on TV cutting steel it is like cutting butter, but I am doing something wrong, evidently.

Just have to sit down some day and play with it , I guess.

Don

I have a few friends that use them daily I still use my torch set or chop saw. When I buy one I will have to get one of them come and school me. Kind of like my wire welder my boys said I needed it that my old miller stick welder needed replaced well I resisted I had a small wire welder for body work why did I need a large one well bought one a few years ago love it. But there are still times that I use my old stick welder. But the fun part is to watch some of the young guys that come over to my shop try to use a stick welder they are from a wire welder world.
Thats the way I feel about a plasma cutter I am a guy from the torch world the only people that had a plasma cutter when I was learning to weld was james bond. LOL

We bought both of our plasma cutters from these folks, bought our Miller welder and we get all of our plasma supplys from them also. Great folks to deal with.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hypertherm-Powe...70472842343?pt=BI_Welders&hash=item5641e6f467

Trust me you will flat out love it i bought one 3 months ago and it has saved us so much time and let us make much cooler stuff faster! Make sure your running a big air compressor and dont buy a cheap plasma cutter i bought a thermal dynamics for 1000 bucks and flat out love it.. There are cheap ones out there that dont do very well at all.. I was going to buy a miller just because i would rather buy name brand.. You know what i mean if you have ever used a miller welder and then used a off brand welder of why you would never cheat on name brand for certain reasons.. And make sure you have a bigger air compressor

i have a miller 625 in my shop and it is by far one of my 10 top investments

I have a hypertherm 600 that I bought in 02 and I LOVE it!
It is rated to cut 3/4" but I have cut 7/8" to make some steering arms for a 4x4 .Not one problem with it! I recommend Hypertherm![

I have a large compressor I have a few moisture problems that I am going to work on first everything I have read water is not a good thing on a plasma cutter Plan on running new piping in the shop and move my seperator farther from my compressor. I always try and buy miller welding equipment have had great luck with everything so far. I do have a small lincoln wire welder worked well for many years and I thought it was great till I got my miller auto set a few years ago. There is a day and night difference. But there was also a price difference.

I have a hypertherm 600--fine machine--3/8 is a little large for it, but it will cut it OK. Just have to go slow. I have a final filter--(toilet paper roll in a canister kinda thing) that traps water--need that as a little water will eat the tips up and they get expensive.

Don pointed out the fire issue--thats a problem--they blow fire everywhere. I've set fire to a number of things--me included. I'd say 2-3X what a torch puts out.

The CNC units like RPM has often have a water box under the cutting table, and usually a powered vent hood. I'd like to have that cause I'm real concerned about the smoke--its vaporized metal, (and whatever is in the metal). I've developed respiratory problems over the years, and I'm sure stuff like this has had something to do with it.

PA41

PA41 said:

I have a hypertherm 600--fine machine--3/8 is a little large for it, but it will cut it OK. Just have to go slow. I have a final filter--(toilet paper roll in a canister kinda thing) that traps water--need that as a little water will eat the tips up and they get expensive.

Don pointed out the fire issue--thats a problem--they blow fire everywhere. I've set fire to a number of things--me included. I'd say 2-3X what a torch puts out.

The CNC units like RPM has often have a water box under the cutting table, and usually a powered vent hood. I'd like to have that cause I'm real concerned about the smoke--its vaporized metal, (and whatever is in the metal). I've developed respiratory problems over the years, and I'm sure stuff like this has had something to do with it.

PA41

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We had to build a new building, dedicated to the plasma cutter. It has a 4' x 4' vent in the wall with a 10,000 cfm exhaust fan to git rid smoke and dust.

We have a refrigeration unit to get moisture and then the Motor Guard filter, that looks like a roll of toilet paper just before the cutter itself. Got to keep moisture out.

We use a Thermal Dynamics Cutmaster 52,came with a 3 year warranty. Looks kind of cheap, plastic casec and all,but works great in the two years we've had it. The onlt thin i don't like about it,is it runs for4 10 minutes after you stop using it to cool off, i guess this should make it last longer, but it interfers with my yaking at someone close by.

If money was not an object I'd buy a Hyper-therm or Thermodynamics unit.
I do have a baby Hyper-therm 190C but it is strictly a sheet metal cutter and goes through consumables like crazy, it has it's own air supply & is very noisy.

For CNC use I would definitely use one of the 2 brands above.

Here's one to look into that's really inexpensive and great bang for the buck but are high frequency and a PIA for CNC setup http://www.longevity-inc.com
They seem to have great customer service

As name brand kinds of people go. When it comes to welding equipment I go Miller true blue almost all the time but for plasma cutter I used to go Thermal Dynamics and have one (600) also have a Snap-on someone gave me about twenty years ago ($3600.00 new) but I have a buddy who bought one off Ebay to cut up some old tire rims and figured that for $400.00 he could afford to just throw it away if it became a problem as it paid for itself on the first day. He has bought two more sense and the two new ones are still in the box. Russ say's the consumables cost him a dollar a day to use as he replaces them every day (all three pieces) and he uses the heck out of that thing. I am guessing he uses it at least two hours a day. If I remember right it is called a SOTO CUTS 50D and the consumables pack from the same guy is a $200. and come with 100 contact tips electrodes and swirl ring.

My migs are all Miller my Tigs are Linde and my plasma cutters are Thermal Dynamics but I think I am going to change that one

I have a miller. It's worked pretty hard now for 7 years. The parts easy to get, you'll go through tips and being able to get them over the counter will be nice. Make sure you have good equipment on, the spark are going to fly every where!

Klink.

My buddy just bought a miller plasma not sure the model but this thing cuts thru 3/8 like butter!!! And he has had it for a cpl months now and I have got a lot of use out of it LOL he cuts parts for me all the time so if I go get one it is gonna be a miller like his it was spendy tho I think around $1600

hey LD13..

If you just want a "good" plasma cutter for non professional use...I bought a Ramsond model... it works like nutz and only cost me $500 bucks....not Chinese but German with one Jap part....panasonic rectifier or something.. used it to cut the c-notches on the frame...it cut thru the frame thickness and the 1/4" 2x4 box I had welded in....without a hitch.... cuts 1/8 and 1/4 with ease... can be wired 110 or 220, I did the 220 and with 45amps and 30lbs of air it cuts about anything.... only had it a couple months but I see Eastwood has a unit looks just like mine for 699..... probably built by Ramsond...you can check it out at www.ramsond.com....