Most pierces are now gouges with new FW 1.10. What the hell?

Razor weld 45
CFP w/ THC
Cutting 1/4" plate
Clean air with refrigerant drier, rotary airscrew compressor
Amps 30, speed 508mm air 65 psi
Pierce 0.06, 1 second
Voltage ramps up to 194 and seems fairly stable within the first milliseconds of the cut. Then the torch drops out.

After installing the new FW and FC 20.6 (up from 20.5), most of my pierces in 1/4" plate are only gouges. The THC raises the torch away while starting the first couple mm of the arc and obviously the torch loses the arc and that annoying ass error message keeps popping up. Grrrrrr.

So far, at 10 hours of operator time for a 94 cut plate. 3 tips. And it’s totally random. Some cuts I get about 5 minutes of solid performance, then the next 20 minutes are so numbingly frustrating that you want to put your head between the table and the torch and hit go.

Only thing that seems to work is to either skip the line or loop, or jack the speed to 140% and pierce delay to -30.
Also tried:

Air pressure 65-80
Initial pierce delay -60 to+130
Cut speeds -70 to+140
Completely rebuilt the THC head and screw assembly.
Relubed all the track with Wurth lead screw lube
Rechecked all bearings and screw alignment
Rechecked and cleaned all connections on thc, torch , plasma input, and usb.
Fresh reinstall of Fire Control, and post 1.6. reposted the file in Fusion 360

And every iteration inbetween.

Ideas here?!!

Obviously the dross looks like crap because I’m simply fighting to get a good series of cuts.

16129407034301930871986312877078|236x500 16129406636027508398439076137471|236x500

Why on earth are you cutting 1/4 inch at 30 amps? Turn that thing up to 45.

Torch raising while cutting is exactly the symptom I had which ended up being ground interference from having my laptop plugged in.

3 Likes

And pierce height of 0.15 instead of 0.06 and maybe bump up the air to 70-80psi at the torch (f you just have a gauge at the tank, it’s lower at the plasma cutter).

Make sure you size the tip appropriately - you want the 1.0mm nozzles.

2 Likes

I was going off the cut chart elsewhere in the forum’s for 1/4" cut specs. The line is mysteriously blank about IPM and amps. I’ve had success previously at these settings.

So amps 40-45 and IPM of… 30? That’s quite an aggressive setting. I’m using the 1.0mm tips already

Cut power 45, air 80, IPM 30. Still fail.