After a busy schedule with work, travel and the holidays I finally got to do some more cutting the other day and saw the pierce counter and cut timer working and got the following results.
Most of the cutting on this set was done with my wall mounted dryer by the air compressor and the internal dryer inside of the Primeweld cut 60 and it still looks like I am getting moisture on the electrode by the swirl marks that I am seeing. I added another inline water separator on the back of the Primeweld and the next set did not have the swirl marks on the electrode. By the direction of the swirl marks on the electrode I am also second guessing if I have my swirl ring installed backwards as it looks like it would be going against the direction that it threads into the torch? That seemed to give me the best cut but now that I have more cutting time I may flip it over and try it again.
So now I am starting to get an idea of how long the consumables are going to last on this material. So maybe in the near future I will be able to predict when a tip may fail in the middle of a project.
Picture #1 the tip and electrode don’t look that bad for an hour of cutting. A little moisture won’t heart ,yes its spinning the air counterclockwise but if its working then keep it that way.
Picture #2 they are bad and need to be changed out, but then it was also an hour of cutting time.
Yes, the second one I ran until failure, last cut on the tree of life that we are doing for gifts this year, changed it out and restarted the cut on the last cut and didn’t lose the project. Good learning on how to restart.
I remember when we talked you said to try it both ways and back then this worked best but I have changed some settings since then and will try it the other way since I have a little more time with it and a better understanding.
I cut a bunch of monograms these last couple of days but didn’t think to just leave the counter going. I reset every time. I also used a new tip and electrode with my Primeweld Cut60.
I gotta say though your new screen layout is great, especially the jog setting being on the main screen. saves alot of time.
I’m just glad that you are getting some use of it, feel free to ask if there is something else that you find yourself needing that needs to be on the main screen.
My goal in doing the counter was to be able to predict when the consumables are near the end of their life. Sheetcam list how many pierces the project has and if I see that the counter in mach3 is only 25 away from the max pierces that I have gotten and the project has 60 pierces then I may choose to change the consumables before I cut that one or at least do it 1 cut at a time and evaluate the condition of the consumables.
