Personal plasma cutter

[Mud Dog]

Does anyone know anything about this unit. Price is good but what about the quality? Does it use air (ionised) or inert gas? Recommended buy or not? (Special ends tomorrow - 14th May)

http://www.game.co.za/promotion/diy-pai ... 4082p.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks!

[CasKru]

You only need air (compressor)..


Some more specs.... http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/66199612 ... utter.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Mud Dog]

Thanks Cassie .... I see on the specs that it makes use of a pilot arc ..... that's like a tiny pre chamber where the air is ionised to start off the plasma.

Looks like that sale closed and if the guy that bought it saw the Game ad, he's probably still kicking himself right now.

So, anyone familiar with this machine? Worthwhile buy?

[Stef]

Certainly is a tempting buy! Don't have any experience with plasma cutters, but knowing Mass Mart that is probably in the same league as the Matweld type inverter welders (which to date I can't fault) and similar brands.

Don't think you'll be able to run it 10 hrs a day every day, but it should do for odd jobs I think. I would take chance on it.

[jacques kotze]

Matweld is widely available in SA, I think it is a good buy. The duty cycle is 60%, not to bad for the price. My vote: Buy it.

[Hiluxfan_111]

I’m not familiar with this specific unit or its quality.
However a plasma cutter is a VERY handy thing to have. It works very well for cutting thinner material. Not so much on thicker. The cutting tip consists of three parts, two electrodes and an insulator. These need to be replaced often, so make sure you can get the correct ones as spares.
At that price I would say buy it!

[Mud Dog]

Jacques, it's not a "Matweld" ... it's a "Trade Weld" ..... if it were Matweld I would have no hesitation.

[Mud Dog]

In for a penny, in for a pound ............... I bought it anyway.

[Hangover]

Woohooo ekt ook ene gekoop... Vanand *a* daar paar ysters...

[Hoppy]

I use one, they are full of sh!t, but they work well when they do. They eat tips, order a few. The job needs to be clean, it doesn't cut well through paint or dirt and it does't cut as thick as they claim.

[Mud Dog]

Thanks for the feedback Allan ... will get some spare tips. I have a number of angle grinders, ox-acetylene and ox-LPG torches as well as part-off cutter / cropping saw for metal cutting, but metal work is only a small portion of our scope, so the unit has very little chance of being overworked. We have managed just fine over many years without one but my thoughts are that it might make life a little easier and save a little time here and there.

If I find it to be sufficiently useful to me, I might organise a small portable compressor so that the unit can utilised on site (will burn that bridge if and when I need to cross it).

Geluk Stef! Laat weet jou ondervinding as jy hom toets!



.

[Stef]

Geluk Stef! Laat weet jou ondervinding as jy hom toets!



.

??? Het nie een gekoop nie...I meant I would take chance on it if I were you hehe don't really have a need for it, but wouldn't mind having one...

[ThysdJ]

I use one, they are full of s**t, but they work well when they do. They eat tips, order a few. The job needs to be clean, it doesn't cut well through paint or dirt and it does't cut as thick as they claim.

Is dit hoekom ek jou elke keer met die ystersaag in jou hande sien staan??

[Mud Dog]

Geluk Stef! Laat weet jou ondervinding as jy hom toets!



.

??? Het nie een gekoop nie...I meant I would take chance on it if I were you hehe don't really have a need for it, but wouldn't mind having one...

Nee man Stef ..... the post was meant for "Hangover" Stef. He bought one.

[Stef]

Geluk Stef! Laat weet jou ondervinding as jy hom toets!



.

??? Het nie een gekoop nie...I meant I would take chance on it if I were you hehe don't really have a need for it, but wouldn't mind having one...

Nee man Stef ..... the post was meant for "Hangover" Stef. He bought one.

[Mud Dog]

Just a bit of feed-back .....

Got to use the cutter for the first time today and it works brilliantly. Was cutting 1mm and 1.8mm plate ... cuts are clean with very little drossing on the underside when the amps and cut speed are right. I can see that I'm going to get a fair amount of use from this little unit.

On smaller cuts the metal is still fairly cool, but on longer continuous cuts it gets a bit hot but can still be handled straight afterwards (not sure this will be the case with thicker metal).

One thing I did find is that one has to use a straight-edge, as trying to follow a scribed line with 'free-hand' did not yield a nice clean cut.

I played around a bit with different pieces of scrap metal and found that rusty or painted metal was not a problem if you first cleaned off the starting point of the cut and the earth connection point. The exposed 'clean' metal of the cut as one progresses is sufficient to maintain the plasma arc. However, since the torch is in light contact with the work-piece, the unevenness of a rusty / dirty surface tends to 'deflect' the torch off the line, especially with free-hand cutting, resulting in a slightly jagged edge.

Part of my 'playing around' involved cutting open an old geyser I first cut off one end cap with an angle grinder and then the other with the plasma cutter. The plasma did it in ¼ of the time required by the grinder. Surprisingly the insulation foam on the inside of the plasma cut was not burned and only melted back by about 10mm, but deeper at the starting point and where I hesitated or 'stop - started'.

Like with most tools, it will require a bit of practice to master, but I am happy with it's performance and pleased with my purchase.

[MOFASA]

Post a pic of the cutter you got and lets see some on the cuts too....

[Mud Dog]

It's the "Tradeweld 40H Pro Cut", Johno.

plas.jpg (5.51 KiB) Viewed 2450 times

Job cuts are already welded and off to site ..... only got some practice cuts and the stuff where I messed about ... all free hand, so not impressive by any means but will post some pics when I get a chance.

[BlumTRD]

Oom Andy

I have the same one cut 40h

Here are some pics .

Hy moet net n steady hand he .
Dan sny hy al te lekker .



Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[Hangover]

Het laas week en die naweek wat verby is die plasma cutter nogal intensief gebruik... Het so nozzel verbrand maar weer mooi gefix met n fyltjie... Het 610OD pyp met 8mm wand gesny soos n droom!! Die pyp was redelik skoon so kon nie die verf en roes toets doen nie...

[george]

David like you bril/masker.Kan nogal gevaarlik lyk met daai ding en die plasma wat brand.Freddy Kruger sal hol

[Mud Dog]

David like you bril/masker.Kan nogal gevaarlik lyk met daai ding en die plasma wat brand.Freddy Kruger sal hol

Funnily enough, I didn't like the mask that was supplied with the unit and also decided that I would try my auto-darkening hood. It has a number of different settings and I thought it would be suitable .... for the most part it is, because I can set the darkness to not be so dark as what would be required for welding, but even setting the sensitivity to the arc and the reaction time, I found that it would still darken too much for a second at the start .... something that I didn't like too much. I found that my brazing goggles were more suitable. The arc is almost completely hidden and one can see just fine without any goggles or hood, but would rather not take the chance of damaging my eyes.

I had a bit of time to play around with the unit yesterday and tried an idea I had ... will make a separate post with pics for that later.

[Mud Dog]

My idea came about after noticing that the work-piece was not very hot, even immediately after cutting. Also that the cutting arc was directed down through the work-piece and that there was little or no 'heat burn' around the edges of the cut. I had already been thinking about cutting shapes, perhaps even lettering, from templates and I got to wondering about whether a wooden template would get burned. I decided to try it out and made a quick template from an old piece of masonite (hard-board).

I then cut the shapes .....

....and found that there was absolutely no sign of any burning on the template. Even some of the furry edges in the corners were still furry and had not burned off. The cutting itself was a different matter. What I found was that the torch was not sliding smoothly and evenly along the home made stencil and this resulted in a less than perfect edge, particularly on the cut-outs since one could run off the edge into the cut-out area.

What is to be learned from this is that if one makes a stencil from masonite, the edges must be properly smoothed off before use. Furthermore, if the one intended to cut patterns into a sheet, a stencil type template (let's call it a 'negative'), like the one I made would be fine because it would leave the cleaner edge on the sheet. If however the intention was to keep the cut-outs and discard the sheet, then cutting around a 'positive' template would be the better option. Also remove each cut-out from under the sheet before cutting the next ..... you can see that some of them got tarnished by the heat from the flame underneath while cutting the next shape and one even got a secondary cut. The work-piece surface itself must also be clean and smooth so that the movement of the torch doesn't shudder, stick fast or deflect off the line.

This pic of the 'fingernail' moon was the best looking of the cut-outs. I cut a couple of pin-holes into it top and bottom as one might do if it were to be used as part of a wind-chime. Note that the pics show the result immediately after cutting without any attempt to clean up any edges.

[Froll]

Wow, looks real interesting. A person can do a lot of things with one of those machines.