On my lasers I use chipboard (the paper kind - like cereal box or legal paper pad backing cardboard) or inexpensive 1/8" Revolution or Baltic Birch plywood to do trial cuts & engraves of new projects before I commit them to expensive materials like acrylic, Corian or hardwoods.
I wanted to find something similar for the Crossfire but I’m having issues having the Crossfire consistently cut the most inexpensive lightweight (30 or 28ga sheetmetal). Both of these are in the order of about $1 - 1.50/sq foot at the big box building supply stores. The Crossfire cuts through like butter when manually driving Mach 3 but .tap files of G-Code don’t execute consistently. The torch stops firing in the middle of cutlines, will restart and die again later in a different place. It’s not the files as re-running will have the fails show up in other places and the same file will cut fine (speed slowed down, power turned up) on something like 16ga steel. It’s almost like it’s blowing the arc out or potentially drowning it.
I spent a day messing with speeds - slower, faster; power - more, less; water table filled and empty; new consumables; new dessicant in the water filter and even air pressure modifications - from 50 to 90psi. The Razorweld has an internal air regulator preset for 80psi so I’m not sure what effect that’s having on my testing.
So far the most reliable cheap stuff is 22ga galvanized but it’s not as cheap as the thinner sheetmetal and cutting galvanized has to be done with a fair amount of care when done a lot.
Anyone find any settings or tips & tricks that make this really thin stuff work with the Crossfire (or any CNC plasma table) or other suggestions for inexpensive trial materials before committing a design to a $30 sheet of 12 or 14ga steel?
I wounder if it thinks it is loosing the arc and shutting down. No issue with heaver gauge? maybe try double up two sheets? make sure no coating on the sheet is effecting connectivity to the work clamp?
I have to think the torch sensing is what is getting you. The machine thinking it needs protection. Best thoughts are good grounding (work clamp) on material, lower amperage, higher speed, reduced air pressure (disclaimer I never owned plasma before this table )
The thinnest I have cut 0.032 aluminium with no issue @100 IPM don’t recall current of my head. no issue with that and I have made both long and short cuts on that.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. It’s losing the arc for some reason.
I did ground directly to the sheetmetal. There’s no perceptible coating but I’ll give it a sanding next time and see if that helps. Speed, power, air I’ve all mucked with so I’m running out of options. A coating or even an alloy composition might be at play - it certainly doesn’t rust so maybe there’s something in there that makes it problematic. Although it cuts really sweetly with manual control - I got a couple of 2 ft x 4 ft sheets and cut it down on the table by firing the torch and sliding it over using the jog controls in Mach (on my Mach pendant in fact).
Have you tried removing that little capacitor thing from the plasma cutter? I forgot what it’s called but I saw a thread on here a while ago. My razorweld would constantly stop cutting mid job in different spots every time, once I removed the capacitor looking thing I never had a problem with it. Also I ended up buying a Hypertherm Powermax 45xp with the fine cut consumables and with that I cut 22ga titanium no problem
Awhile back I was cutting 4 inch letters out or 24g ( I think it was 24g, maybe 22g)barn metal for some signs for the wifey. Using my Other plasma by hand. I had to turn air as low as it would go and still work, and amps to lowest and cut crazy fast or my torch would go out. Was burning to big of a cut and losing ground im guessing. And if you have a place near that bends there own , you can probably buy some off there roll that would be basically 36xthe length you wanted flat with none of the bends. ( my 3 cents worth)
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