PowerMax 45 failure under warranty

[willcp00]

Hello all.

This is my first post to this forum. I've been lurking for awhile and have come across some very useful and creative information!

I was hopping for Jim Colt of Hypertherm to chime in on this one:

I bought a PowerMax 45 back in May, and have been cutting anything and everything I can find! Wow! What a machine! 2 months ago, it started working intermittently and the down times were associated with a chirping/clicking sound. The first trip to the repair shop netted me a replacement control board which didn't fix my problem, and lost me 5 weeks of valuable cutting time. I decided to pull the cover, go through the service manual and video every symptom I came across. An email with a link to the YouTube - VID 20100911 113340, and a phone call to hypertherm diagnosed it as the Power board. Took it back to the repair shop and got it back in 5 days! So far, so good!!!!

My question/concern is: Is this a common failure? Can I expect this to happen again? I bought Hypertherm hoping that this would be an investment and continue to cut for years to come.

Is there anything I can do to prevent failures like this in the future?

Another question... What are you folks using for incoming air filtration? I came across this on the web and was wondering what you thought?

http://www.harrisweldingsupplies.com...airfilter.aspx

Thanks!
Chris

[Arthurmetal]

Hi chris,
I am using the P45 here over in the Netherlands/ Europe. What a fabulous machine indeed. Although Hypertherm mentions that the P45 may run on “shop air” the specifications for air contamination are quite strict. I made every precaution to get my air clean: a water separator, a pre-filter for 0.1 micron particals, a refrigerator airdryer and a as a last stage a0.01 partikal filter. Fortunately I could lay my hands on a second hand refrigerator airdryer through our local ebay.
As specified by Hypertherm, clean air improves your cut quality en extends consumable life. I learned the hard (expensive) way: I started out with cnc plasma with a entry level italian machine with only a water separator on my compressor. What a load of rubbish….
regards, Arthur

[jimcolt]

Actually the Powermax45 (it has been in the field for around 2 years) has the lowest warranty costs (our internal people track this carefully!) of any plasma system we have ever built. It is the most popular plasma systems we have ever sold as well.....it broke sales records (previously held by our Powermax600) even during the downturn in the economy.

So, to answer your questions....while it is a piece of shop equipment and they will have failures from time to time, it certainly is not normal to have a major board failure.The chirping noise in a Powermax 45 is normal, mine has been making it (I can only hear it when I have my hearing aids in (too many racecars, motorcycles and chainsaws in my younger days!) so it doesn't bother me too much.

The Motorguard filter is good, however you need to check the element often to ensure it is not saturated with moisture. I actually use a refrigerated air dryer (found it on Craigslist for under $100) then the motorguard to handle any particulates....this way the elements last a long time. Don't be tempted to use a roll of toilet paper as the element....the motorguard was originally designed to use these, yet the toilet paper breaks down (oil and moisture) and creates clogs in your plasma and air tools.

Jim