Sorry for this long post…I have a Pro and a PW Cut60. The cutter is a warranty replacement for one that recently failed. I had mild noise problems with the first cutter that seemed to go away moving the cutter farther from the electronics box. Due to my initial issues, LS sent two more chokes, so I have a total of three chokes on the stock USB cable. When I hooked up my new warranty power source in the exact same location and configuration, I immediately became unable to complete any of various tries at four short programs (short as in 4-8 short loops each). I’ve previously run each of those four successfully. I had following problems in about 90 minutes of trying: (1) torch froze open on first pierce; (2) torch froze open midway through a loop; (3) torch lowered at x0y0 and cut its way to first pierce, then stuck open; (4) torch stuck closed partway into program; (5) FC froze between loops; (6) lost arc voltage errors and (7) FC lost zero during “Run from Here” and tried to cut in a location off the material. LS is sending me three more chokes in response to my support request. That’s nice of them, but I probably won’t be able to reach my computer on my stand up desk with 6 chokes installed and looped.
I’ve thought of putting aluminum foil or a braided copper sheath around the whole USB cable and attaching that to a drain wire to carry the noise to to earth. I’ve even thought of trying to make a metallic shield or cage for the power source. However, I know nothing about this EMI voodoo. Does anyone have any more ideas about noise attenuation beyond ferrite chokes? I’m literally afraid to put another dollar of material on this table until I fix this.
where is the cutter in relation to the control box? i also have the CUT60 and had a few interference issues only when the cutter was close to the control box on either Original CF or Pro. I moved the cutter to the opposite side of the table from the control box and it’s working well now with only 1 choke installed on original usb cable.
have you tried a different USB cable? sometimes one works better than others.
Plasma is as far away as I can place it right now without running an extension cord. I’ll try that next time. Also, I ordered a new USB to give that a try. Also, going to see if I can find out what actually went wrong in the other plasma, which they let me keep for parts. Thanks.
I should have posted more detail. Plasma on 240v, laptop unplugged. LS is sending me a USB isolation board to try. They’ve never heard of a machine that did this with 2, much less 3 chokes installed. Theory is something wonky about this particular replacement plasma cutter. They tested the isolator on their famous AHP noisemaker and it worked fine. Hopefully, this will get me cutting again.
I have 3 chokes installed on the Razorweld 45 that Langmuir supplied and the plasma is a far away from the enclosure as it possibly can be. With 1 choke I couldn’t even make it through a cut.
Im not sure its just your plasma cutter that is the issue. I definitely could be wrong…but on a positive note I have not had any issues since. Keeping my fingers crossed
I pretty sure it will solve your problem. I ran into this with a Hypertherm, perhaps because I had to use Raw voltage (older Powermax 600) and ran the raw voltage and torch on/off wires out the same hole, and parallel inside the machine. Generally it’s bad practice to run your low voltage comm wires parallel and close to noisey high voltage wires. Anyway it was solved with a USB isolator.
The chokes attenuate the noise, the isolator removes the path. For anyone that wants to buy a usb isolator I provide links in the below post, you can also grab cheap ones off ebay/amazon.
Thank you. I really hope it works, because this has been very discouraging. I have some 10 and 7 gauge 316l parts to cut, but can’t take a high risk of turning $2000 worth of material into scrap.
