I finally pulled the trigger and purchased the 45XP - an upgrade from my Cut50i! Holly cow what a difference in cut quality and speed! Simply amazing!
After i programmed the Hypertherm cut charts into both Fusion 360 and sheetcam, i noticed an issue. it appears that when cutting 14ga the torch starts moving before the torch fires. 14 ga requires a pierce delay and 0.2 secs, 225 IPM. that is FAST! To resolve the late torch firing, i increased the pierce delay and fudged it that way. But not sure what this issue is!
second question is - the cut charts talk about volts, but not amps. The plasma cutters i have seen do not have a volt knob to adjust. So what am i supposed to do with smaller thickness materials.
for 1/4" i have it set at 45 amps and it is amazing, for 14 ga, i got a lot of dross that was hard to remove. I know this means you are supposed to go faster, but att 225ipm i was getting a lot of build up. is the solution to turn the amps down? if so what it he guidance there? Howcome this is not published in the cut charts?
Happy to hear you’re having success with your 45 XP.
Check out this topic about voltage. Should answer lots of your questions.
As far as speeds I try to run book speeds if possible.
If you’re north of 300 in per minute you’re going to have to start dialing back your amperage and you will no longer be on hypertherms cut charts so if you find good settings in this range write them down for yourself. Or better yet share them with everyone else.
The minimum I’ve ever been able to do for Pierce delay is 0.4 if anyone else has been able to dial it down to 0.2 please let us know how.
Hey , so i found that article after i wrote this one, but it talks about reading voltage at the THC. I do not have the THC module and so i’m completely blind to voltage readings.
but so what you are saying is that i need to dial back the amperage settings for 14Ga say? but that from this point it is trial and error? AKA create a sample cut piece - straight lines, keep the speed constant and for each line dial back the amperage by 5 amps per pass say?
actually - i just looked at the manual again, and saw the fine cut - cut sheets. there they have fine cut charts and fine cut low speed as well - both those charts have amperage settings on them, something the other cut (rought cut? lol) charts do not.
Anyhoo, i guess what htey are saying is that once you get thinner than 10GA, that you should switch to finecut consumables? if that’s the case - time to go get some fine cut consumables as my machine didn’t come with them!
The only reason you would measure your voltage is to control your torch height.
Professional CNC machines aren’t capped out at 300 in per minute like the langmuir pro.
So in cases that cut charts want you to run faster than that then you’re making your own playbook.
This typically involves dialing down the amperage. Moving down in 5 amp increments is not a bad plan.
Cut charts for hypertherm unless stated will be
45 amp for 45 amp consumables.
65 amp for 65 amp consumables.
85 amp for 85 amp consumables.
I very rarely use fine cut consumables. I wouldn’t even load them into my torch unless I was cutting something 18 gauge or less.
I find I’d rather not use fine cut consumables on 14 gauge I keep my cut speeds up and then I won’t have a bunch of weird thermal bridging going on.
Hypertherm book Pierce Delay is from fire whereas the CrossFire & Crossfire PRO Pierce Delay (as programmed) is the CNC signal to fire. There is a latency there that is around .2-.3s but this depends on the plasma cutter.