I’ve had my Crossfire XR with an Everlast 102i for about 9 months now and things have been working great. Have been getting it dialed in more and more every time I use it… until last week. I was cutting some 1/4” aluminum and was having issues. Long story very short, the aluminum would cut great in X +/- and in Y +, but when it would round the corner and start moving in Y -, it would stop cutting all the way through the material, have tons of blow back and cover the tip with aluminum.
Tried everything I could think of to remedy the problem. New consumables, air is dry, rechecked square on the torch (which I assumed could really be the only issue since it was only 1 direction not cutting) and so on. I let it run around the parts a few times and even after the tip would get covered in aluminum while cutting Y-, after it started heading back in Y+, it would correct itself and cut fine along that path… Luckily the parts I needed to cut were long and skinny so I just rotated them 90° and was able to get nice parts off the machine cutting mostly in X. Just curious if anyone else had ever run into this issue before or had any ideas. I’ll post some pictures of the aluminum and also of some 1/4” steel I cut the night before so you can see how well it was cutting on that.
Clamp is on the material. Tried moving it as close to the part it was cutting as possible. Tried starting it moving in both directions. Started great when piercing and initially moving in Y+, then messed up coming back in Y-. Started terribly when piercing and initially moving in Y-, then “corrected” itself and cut fine once it headed back in Y+
And again, after all the failed attempts at cutting mostly in Y-axis, I rotated the program so it cut mostly in X-axis and it worked great (see first comment photo). Changed amperage, program, speed, air pressure and all other settings to my initial settings for those parts that cut great.
I think that might be what is happening: you are getting specks of aluminum in the torch between the shield and the nozzle and or near the electrode. I had a similar inconsistent cut with metal after successfully cutting aluminum. When I took the consumables out to look at them, two small flakes of aluminum fell out. Put it back together and it cut fine.
I converted to shielded consumables from George with the welding spray the problem disappeared.
I will never return to unshielded consumables; that is how much better they work.
I would also like to know his cut height in those pictures. Looks way too high or has a lousy work clamp connection. How many IPM and amps does he have that 102i set for? Air pressure while cutting? Cutting aluminum is a totally different animal from mild steel. By the way the MIG gel works great to like @TinWhisperer said and is much cheaper.
In addition to what BigDaddy said/asked, is there a chance that your air supply was starving?
For the cut height check, the next time you witness the cut not piercing the metal (it will sound profoundly different as well and more sparks on the top of the sheet). Tap the space bar to stop the cut. Measure the distance of the torch off the metal.
Is there a chance that the air compressor kicked on when the one leg of the cut was being attempted?
I understand what everyone here is saying. And I tried the anti-spatter that I had on hand which was just cheap simple green stuff.
But I think the point that everyone here is missing is that I got GREAT cuts in both directions on the X-axis and in ONE direction on the Y-axis. As in the amperage, speed, pierce, air flow, air quality, work clamp, thc, etc weren’t an issue. If you look at the pictures, once I switched it to cut mostly in the X-axis, I got 9 great parts non stop with zero issues…
the issue is in ONE Y-axis direction, no matter what I did it wouldn’t cut. Cut half the part in that direction and once the cut rounded the bend and headed the other Y direction it cleared itself of all slag on the tip and cut fine.
I appreciate all the responses and I know WHAT is happening, I just don’t know WHY it’s only happening while it’s traveling in one direction and not the other 3 directions.
So let’s make sure everyone understands the problem correctly.
You Cut a group of parts and each one of those has an issue with cutting in the Y access.
So each part cuts good until it gets to that same spot on each of those parts?
Hope that makes sense
To throw a wild idea out there. If you have no slow down enabled on tight turns, your coming around that tight corner at cutting speed, upsetting the arc, loosing your cut through the plate then your unable to penetrate from then on. Not sure if that makes sense but looking at the pic of the 2 uncut parts, it all seems to go wrong after that first corner. Why it cuts ok on the other direction I don’t know
This is just purely speculation but I have experienced something like this before on the same axis, only way was to quickly slow the torch down when I seen the fireworks, let it pierce through then reset the speed. Then hope you can beak the part out of the sheet to save it.
Edited… If you use sheet cam, you can enable rules to reduce the travel speed by X percent when approaching corners. Not sure how to do this if you use F360.
