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SomeGuyFromOlympia said:
I bet they do, I have looked at them and wondered, but to cost is a frownie face emoji
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Yea, they are expensive but last way longer so I think it's worth it. No sharpening when its dull sucks. Ream from the back side works best. Usually just enough to get rid of the taper on must be perfect stuff.
 
Ran lots of holes in 11 gauge and think we have it dialed in pretty well. 1/2" holes are really clean with a small pucker at the lead in/out that's hardly noticeable. Called it good and moved on to thicker material.

Switched to 3/16" with 65amp consumables and did a bunch of test cuts. The cuts turned out awesome. Turned the speeds down and was able to cut 3/8" holes pretty clean. They came out a little undersized. 1/2" holes were spot on and nearly perfect. 1/4" holes looked like I cut them free hand blindfolded. So 3/8" looks like the minimum.

Then we jumped to 3/8" plate and burned out a few trailer chain anchors. The 7/16" slots were a little rough at the end of the slot where it changes direction but otherwise they turned out great.

The cable to run the DTHC came and it's installed and the calibration runs complete. Probably start playing with it next week. After running manual settings for the past week I'm not sure how much the DTHC is going to get used. Manual has worked extremely well.

I have a handful of car reamers my brother gave me. I've never used them on anything but I'll have to give them a try.
 
lt1yj said:
Switched to 3/16" with 65amp consumables and did a bunch of test cuts. The cuts turned out awesome. Turned the speeds down and was able to cut 3/8" holes pretty clean. They came out a little undersized. 1/2" holes were spot on and nearly perfect. 1/4" holes looked like I cut them free hand blindfolded. So 3/8" looks like the minimum.

I run 45a on 1/4
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it gets about as perfect as you are going to get without going to laser
that is how I do it anyway
aaaaaand. I can get a honest 6 hours out of a electrode, not program time, but arc on time at that setting :grinpimp:
 
I ran the 65a since I was planning to run 3/8 as well. I was too lazy to change consumables out.

The first nozzle only made it about 3 hours of test time but it had a few issues during testing that probably reduced it's life significantly. We're still on the first electrode and are approaching 4.5hrs of run time. It seems to be working well still.

It's nice to know another data point to reference.
 
lt1yj said:
I ran the 65a since I was planning to run 3/8 as well. I was too lazy to change consumables out.

The first nozzle only made it about 3 hours of test time but it had a few issues during testing that probably reduced it's life significantly. We're still on the first electrode and are approaching 4.5hrs of run time. It seems to be working well still.

It's nice to know another data point to reference.
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I could get around 800-1000 pierces, and 10,000 inches on a set of consumables on 1/4" Aluminum. There are a ton of variations. I generally would replace them early as it was much cheaper then scrapping a part.


Generally holes go well if you are up to 2X material thickness. You will always have a little lead in divot.

Fiber laser is the way to go!
 
Talon2006 said:
Fiber laser is the way to go!
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A supplier for the company I work with has a laser that will cut up to 3/4" material. They've made many parts for me and they're cheap since they're mostly using the drops for my parts. I'll still use them when I need pretty parts or don't want to buy a full sheet of material I'll rarely use.

I'm using the plasma table to build stuff more accurately and faster than I can do by hand and to avoid waiting a week for part turn around. It shortens the project time up considerably and takes away the tedious grinding that I've come to hate in project builds.

It's opened up a lot more opportunities to make stuff rather than buy it. I knocked out a 48" LED TV mount on Saturday instead of buying one. I also made some plates to mount my hose reels to the steel building frame so I have air drops in 4 locations now with two more coming later in the week.

I'm still in the learning phase and hope to keep making better parts as I go forward
 
Having your own table is great for prototyping, one-offs, and small runs. If you get to the point where you want to make dozens - or hundreds - of a part, then you have the file and can just send it to the local laser shop.
 
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