Aluminum with Powermax45

[jimcolt]

I did a job cutting 40 aluminum zipline trolley frames today with the Powermax45 on my cnc machine....I nested all of the parts on a 4 x 4 piece of .080" aluminum....pushed the start button and about 40 minutes later had parts for my customer. Cut quality was excellent.....probably the most amazing thing was that I started cutting the parts with consumables that already had over 400 pierces on them (mostly cutting 3/8" and 1/4" steel).....they still looked good.....and I proceeded to cut these aluminum parts adding another 540 pierces on the consumables.....still cutting great! Here are some pics......each part had a bunch of 1/4" diamter holes....very round, very nice tolerances!

Jim

[magma-joe]

Hi Jim,

Nice cuts on the aluminum. What size nozzle were you using?

I have a question about fine cut consumables. I read in another post that you recommended ;

(With FineCut parts....I suggest using the 220404 shield.....this shield extends a few thousandths past the nozzle and protects the nozzle in the event of contact with the plate...use it for both hand and machine cutting with FineCut parts.)

My machine is the 1250 sieres with stall force initial height sensing.

I looked up the part numbers and the 220404 shield is for ohmic sensing. The 220325 shield looks longer as well and does not require the ohmic sensing retaing cap. What is the 220325 shield normally used for and would it also extend beyond the finecut nozzle? Thanks,

Magma-joe

[jimcolt]

I used the standard consumables (45 amp) for cutting the .080" aluminum....I turned the current down to 35 amps and cut at 120 ipm for better tolerances. The Powermax 45 has a new torch technology called conical flow.....which eliminates the need for FineCut consumables for thinner material. Cut quality remains excelent from gauge through 1/2 inch materials.

For the Fine Cut parts for use in the 1250....the 404 shild is the only one that extends past the nozzle....it works with or without the ohmic cap, and since it is longer than the nozzle it does not allow the nozzle to touch the plate in the event of the plate rapidly popping up (thermal stress). It is the best shield to use for all applications from my experience....and works well with stall force initial height sensing.

Jim