How to Cut Various Metals Types on a CNC Plasma Table - Tips and Tricks with Jim Colt

In this episode, Jim Colt, an industry veteran from Hypertherm, talks about the types of materials that can be cut with plasma. Visit https://www.maverickcnc.com/ for more information on all of our plasma cutting tables.

The 3 main types of metals typically cut using plasma are mild steel, aluminum, and stainless steel. The thickness in which you can cut these metal depend on the plasma cutter, rather than the table.

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Video description :

Jim here from Hypertherm. Just want to talk briefly about different material that can be cut with an air plasma cutting system that would typically be used on a five by ten CNC cutting table like this. Typically, the most commonly cut metal, for sure, is mild steel or carbon steel or just plain steel. Anything that has, that’s related to steel typically cuts pretty well. And also, aluminum is fairly common, not quite as common as mild steel and stainless steel.

They all cut very good with a plasma cutting process. In fact, anything that conducts electricity will cut with a plasma cutting process. Although the three materials we just talked about – mild steel, aluminum, stainless steel – do the best job. The thickness that you can cut on these materials is totally dependent, not on the CNC cutting table but on the plasma cutter itself. Powermax 125 that we’re using on this system can pierce up to one inch thick and can edge start and sever two inch thick material.

That’s the largest air plasma, when you go down to a 45 amp air plasma system you typically are going to be piercing and cutting in the half inch range and thinner. So there’s a lot of different systems in between those that can cover all the different thickness ranges. Cut speeds, a lot of people compare plasma cutting to say laser cutting, water jet cutting, oxy fuel cutting, those are the major cutting processes that are out there. Plasma’s typically the fastest on all those materials especially as you get into up, as much as about an inch thickness with an air plasma cutting system. Waterjet’s going to probably, it’s definitely going to produce a better cut but it’s going to be considerably slower and a little bit more costly, considerably more costly per foot of cut, same thing with laser.

So plasma’s a really good low cost cutting option for the three major materials – steel, stainless steel and aluminum. We can spend a lot of time talking about all the little tips and tricks in regards to cutting, getting the best cut, getting a nice clean cut edge with no dross or slag on the backside of a cut, that’s probably better left to a longer video where we can talk just about cut quality issues. Another thing that comes up quite often with plasma cutting, however, is the heat affected zone, plasma is a very hot process.

The arc that comes out of that plasma cutting torch can be as much as thirty or forty thousand degrees Fahrenheit but the thing is the arc is forced into a very narrow column and the torch moves along, riding on this CNC cutting table at very high rates of speed. Because it cuts very fast, there’s very little heat that actually gets imparted into the material. In fact, the heat affected zone that creates a chemical or metal article effect to the edge is typically less than ten thousandth of an inch thick. If you want to get rid of it, hit it with a grinder, it’ll come off with about one pass with a grinder. In most cases, this part right here hasn’t been touched, it’s perfectly good to use. You can weld that edge, you can do a lot of things with it. Heat affected zone, cut quality issues, cut speeds – those things – there all covered in a manual that comes with the plasma cutting system. Basically, follow the rules in the manual, use the cut speeds the manual suggests, use the consumable parts – the nozzles the electrodes and so forth and the torch that are suggested in the manual and set everything – the cut speed, amperage, arc voltage levels exactly like the manual says and your going to get a cut that looks like this, very nice looking cut. If you want more detail, more help with cut quality issues, call the experts at Hypertherm and call the experts that build these CNC cutting tables. There the guys that can steer you in the right direction and tell you whether or not plasma’s the perfect process for your application.

Видео How to Cut Various Metals Types on a CNC Plasma Table - Tips and Tricks with Jim Colt канала MaverickCNC Plasma Tables