More questions for Jim Colt

[jjellingson]

Jim, I currently have a 600, in the past I have been some what unhappy with this unit. I have found new hope though. I had basically moth balled the unit and recently tried gouging with it. Wow is all I can say. I had always used drag tip consumables, not a happy camper. In my experience with drag tips. A friend stated he pulled off some amazing gouging with a 600. I thought I had better give it another try. I pulled off the drag tip consumables and found I did not have gouging (currently some on order) but tried the pipe saddle consumables and wow does this thing cut and gouge. My questions are why such a difference in pipe saddle from drag tip? I am in the learning stages of gouging with plasma. I have searched and searched but really not much info out on gouging with plasma. Can you steer me towards anything concerning gouging? While waiting for the correct gouging consumables, do you think gouging will improve with the correct consumables over what I am getting with pipe saddle?
Still waiting for the new 85/with machine torch, I am thinking of ordering a hand torch also, what kind of lead time can I expect on adding a hand torch?
I had planned on the 85 just being used on cnc, why limit myself. Thanks in advance.
John

[jimcolt]

The Pipe saddle nozzle is designed for standoff cutting, not drag cutting and not gouging. It works well as long as it does not contact the plate.....contact with the plate will cause double arcing and short life. In some cases this non shielded nozzle design will cut a bit faster than a shielded nozzle assembly, but its life will never approach the life of shielded nozzle cutting. As far as gouging...he gouging nozzle is designed with a softer, lower energy density arc as opposed to a narrow, high energy density arc in the cutting nozzle designs. The gouging nozzle will leave a wider gouge......so it kind of depends on what your desired gouging results are....as to which consumable combination will work best for you.

Personally, I never use unshielded parts for cutting....while you can get a few minutes of good cut quality, it is not worth it to me for the short life / higher costs associated with them. I'll search around, I think we have an article on gouging with a plasma torch.

As far as the hand torch for the Powermax85....these torches (hand to machine) can be changed in 5 seconds. I leave my machine torch mounted on my cnc machine and plug in my hand torch for other applications. Well worth the price of an additional torch.

The lead times for the Powermax65 and 85 are coming down quickly. Hypertherm manufacturing has worked real hard with a lot of overtime to catch up with the huge inrush of orders. In a couple of weeks we expect lead time to be down to 2-3 days on these units. If I told you how many units per day we are shipping right now....you would be amazed!

Jim

[jjellingson]

Jim
Thanks for the info, I will keep checking back for any info you may find on gouging. I have the feeling this will be a self taught side of plasma. I believe the gouging consumables will be in at the LWS today, hopefully I can give them a tryout later today.
Thanks again
John

[jjellingson]

After getting the correct consumables for gouging, all I can say is wow, I had been able to gouge with pipe consumables but when you install the correct gouging consumables it pretty much took the challenge out of it. I was able to control the depth and width of the gouge easily. This may not be as fast as carbon arc (with a PM600), but many more benefits on the end result. Grooves are pretty much weldable with out much prep. Big advantages are less fire danger, reduced carbon input from air arcing and easily used in restricted areas compared to the carbon arc. I do repairs on greasy, oily, dirty logging equipment and I noticed right off, that the discharge from the cut is minimal compared to carbon arc. Granted, still a risk, but this cuts it down. I highly recommend this procedure to any that need to remove or gouge welds and cracks.
Hats off to Hypertherm

[jimcolt]

If you want to compare to carbon arc gouging....which is often done at 600 Amps, a 40 Amp plasma is really not fair! It does work well and it is easy though.

The 100 Amp Powermax1650 is a gouging beast, and to blow the doors off carbon arc we have a 200 Amp Max200 using Argon/Hydrogen that produces metalurgically pure (ready to reweld) gouges with a better metal removal rate than carbon arc, at 1/3 the power (less noise, less smoke, less UV glare)

Jim

[plain ol Bill]

I'm going to have to get some gouging consumables for my 1250. I have an old Esab unit that I have used to do some gouging with in the past but now you guys have gotten my attention and I need to try it with the 1250 and the right consumables.

[jjellingson]

Jim,
Yesterday I had some pretty deep welds to remove on some drill tube extensions, welds were 1" plus deep. I started on the first of the two tubes with the gouging consumables installed in the 600. Mind you all were new, I was making the second pass around 4.5 inch diameter steel and thought I need to get the air arc out, this is taking forever. I thought what the hell, I will pop a new set of pipe saddle consumables in before I set up for the air arc. Again the light comes on. Why on earth do the pipe saddle consumables out cut the gouging ones? When the cutting arc is established there is no comparison between the two. Granted, I shorted out off the side a couple of times, no real noticeable difference other than restarting the arc. But I could easily control the gouge. When the pieces were removed I noticed that I could shave the remaining weld (outer edge to the deepest section) easily. That doesn't sound like much but try that with an air arc. Even flat rod will not do what I could do with the 600. This may all sound like bull*&#*, but it works and works well. I mentioned this to a costumer that I was doing this for Continued....

[jjellingson]

and this sparked his interest. Seems he as the hypertherm 380 model. I said what the heck lets try your 380 out for some gouging. I really did not expect it to even work. We were all amazed at how the 380 gouged. It was impressive and with just the non contact consumables they use. Apparently the 380 was designed for 110 or 220 volt operation and was wired for 220 at the moment. Again, just standard non contact consumables were impressive. Tonight my thoughts are drag tips suck, probably will never buy them again, and after the last comparison to gouging consumables, more than likely will suffer the shorter life of the pipe saddle consumables for performance. Understand I am not knocking hypertherm in anyway or means. I think these things rock. In fact, I will proudly say the Hypertherm 85 I have been waiting for showed up today. Can't wait to fire this baby up. Only regret at the moment is I am really kicking myself in the butt for not ordering the hand torch at same time I placed the order for the machine torch. Nice qwik connects. Now if they would just do that on the input power lead....that would be nice...

[jimcolt]

The pipe saddle nozzle is a cutting nozzle, thin, long arc. A gouging nozzle produces a short, wide arc. Your application just happens to work better with a cutting nozzle. A 40 amp plasma is really no where near enough power to gouge a 1" weld section...unless you have a lot of time!

The hand torches for the Powermax85 should be about a 2 -3 day lead time.

Jim