I have a Crossfire XR that I purchased about a month ago, it runs off of a prime weld cut 60 that I run at 33 amps, 100ipm at 55psi to cut 16 AWG steel.
I have been using it to cut out decorative signs and things but last night I ran into some problems. While I was cutting out a sign for the first couple of seconds the torch was making some kind of weird honking sound while it was cutting. and whenever it was making that sound there would be excessive dross splashed up on top of the cut and it sometimes wouldn’t cut all the way through, as seen in the following picture.
after that cut it wouldn’t cut at all. so I pulled the torch apart and found the nozzle was caked in metal and the electrode wasn’t looking too good. also, the retaining cap seemed to have loosened up over time thus letting the nozzle get loose.
those consumables had a little under 40 min of torch time and about 250 pierces on them.
so I replaced the nozzle and electrode and now the torch doesn’t fire at all. the plasma cutter relay clicks and air comes out of the nozzle but no plasma. I put the old consumables back in it and nothing. the air pressure was good throughout the entire cut. I tried to use my separate hand torch and that does seem to still work fine.
The only thing I changed on this cut was I turned my pierce delay up from 1.1 to 1.26 and I also changed out the desiccant in the air dryer for the plasma cutter.
if you have any questions or need more info let me know.
thanks for your time,
Sam
This is way too high. I don’t know your PC well enough to tell you exactly what it should be, but I run about 0.150 seconds on 16ga steel. I know Firecontrol needs to be higher, but certainly not that high.
There is a bit of a delay from when the computer tells to plasma cutter to fire to when plasma is actually coming out. I had to turn it up because it was moving before it was firing
I went to try higher air pressure like you said but now I can’t get it to even try to fire. It was that you would hear the cutter relay click and air would come out of the nozzle but no plasma. But now it doesn’t do anything, even when I manually short the torch on off wire.
I am presuming that is with all new consumables, and I would include a swirl ring in that.
Make sure that they are installed correctly, and the electrode still moves in and out (spring pressure). Might have gotten some crap up in there and locked it up.
the electrode was stuck and there seemed to be some black goop coming out of the holes around it. I managed to work it back and forth and get it free but it doesn’t move with spring pressure like you are talking about. I can’t tell if there is no spring pushing on it or if it is still too stuck for the spring to be able to push it. i assume it would be frowned upon to use any kind of lubricant in that area.
The torch has shorted out and burnt up inside and the torch head will need to be replaced. It would also be a good idea to change out all the consumables electrode, cutting tip, swirl ring and retaining cup on the new torch head as well.
@Sticks, All non-HF plasma cutters work the same way, same parts, etc. just it a different configuration.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking because it’s one of those cheaper knockoffs and it’s been giving me problems from the start. Do you still sell the nice made in Italy torches for the cut60?
Yes, The complete torch is $410 + $32 shipping + the cost of consumables you may need. A new torch head is $150 + $12 95 shipping if you want to install it yourself . I use paypal invoicing for payment so I would need your email address.