Pretty new here, and to CNC Plasma as a whole. My dad and I recently finished assembling our crossfire pro table and seem to be running into quite a few teething issues. While there has definitely been a learning curve, and many of the other posts on this forum have been very helpful, the biggest issue that we are facing is that there will be fits where the majority of the time we are having difficulty piercing the material, and our arc will cut out after just a few seconds. That said, when it does cut, it cuts perfectly every time, not dross, next to no bevel, perfectly smooth edges.
The settings that I have been using were influenced by that fairly comprehensive RW 45 cut chart that has been posted here previously, so for the 3/16 mild steel plate that we have been dealing with mostly it has been:
- 1.2 sec pierce
- 40 in
- 40 amp
- .02 springback
- .005 cut height (Our torch has a drag tip, so the actual cut height is closer to .065)
There are no common grounds between the computer and the table, the plasma cutter itself is as far away from the table’s control board as the hose will allow and the shop air system is able to keep up with the demands for the torch.
With these settings, we’ve been getting some more reliable cuts, and like I said, when it cuts it cuts perfectly, but it is still having fits very often where nothing wants to work. The same G-Code, the same piece of material, ground clamp location, pierce delay, feed rate and everything will work great for one cut and not at all for the next 10 tries, then seemingly magically work again.
I am sure that the issue is something to do with operation and not the machine itself, but I’m also fairly well versed in G-Code based tools (several brands of 3d printers, co2 lasers, g-code based vinyl cutters and the like), so I’m aware of how finicky they can be sometimes.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I’m sure I left something out of this post, so if there is more information that would be useful, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m just really hoping to get this thing working.