Hey guys! I bought a Crossfire XR and cut out an aluminum sign for a customer. It’s 14g aluminum and for some reason I got some jagged or wavy cuts.
Can anyone help me in the right direction to get it fixed? Thanks!
Did you buy new or used? Check tension on ball nut screws and copler on lead screw that is on Z axis. Check to make sure all electrical connections are tight and plugged into the correct ports. All belts are tight as well as pully nuts.
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Welcome to the forum!
In addition to what Richard suggested, here are some other possible solutions:
This person found that it was their mouse causing the issue:
This person found by adding “smoothing” in the Fusion 360 manufacturing space eliminated it:
Some people report that this symptom resolved by changing to new OEM consumables.
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I bought it new! These were the first things I checked as well.
I don’t have a wireless mouse so that rules that one out!
I will try the smoothing. Is there a good setting for it that I should be aware of?
Also, the machine is brand new so it’s all new consumables.
This setting is a good one to try first. By default, Fusion will set Tolerance to 0.0004. Change it to 0.004
Yes. It rules out the mouse but it could be some other electronic thing. Who knows.
One last thought, consider lubricating the o-rings in your torch (sparingly), if your torch happens to have any o-rings.
Thanks for the smoothing settings! Also, I’ve got a Hypertherm 65 sync so I’m not sure if it has any o-rings or not. I don’t think it does.
That torch does have one o-ring. Won’t hurt to give it some lube but it is doubtful the problem.
I would try another cartridge but don’t throw the current one away if it doesn’t fix the problem. If it does fix the problem, I would notify the supplier that you got a bad cartridge (they will likely want to send it back to Hypertherm).
I actually swapped to a 45 amp fine cut and it seemed to cut a lot better.
We could also check if the X/Z carriage (the object where you mount your torch) may be loose as well. best way to do so is grasping the Z motor with your hand and giving a little shake. If it shakes, it is loose. If the unit is stiff, it is properly seated on the gantry.
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I checked this at first and it was all good but I will check it again. I’ve been running it with smoothing and a fine cut consumable and it’s running fine so far.
Not sure what software you used for designing the sign. If you have used Inkscape or adobe illustrator and pulled a file over into one of those programs to make modifications it will add “nodes” that you do not need. Each of those nodes tells the plasma cutter to do something. Minimizing the number of nodes in the cut file will also help smooth out the cut similar to the smoothing action described above. I have spent way too much time troubleshooting my machine for similar issues only to find out it was the cut file itself.