Razorweld 45- Air won't stop

Plasma Cutters
1

THE SHORT: The air will not shut off on my Razorcut 45 and just continues to blast air through the gun as if it was cutting out a piece. Only turning off the machine stops it.

STEPS I’VE TAKEN: E-mail sent to Razorweld earlier today (Sunday, 12/13/2020), checked air pressure, moved it up and down (originally set at 60 psi), checked gun wiring - seems OK, nothing wired together like I saw on another post, and I even opened up the machine to see if there was any weird wiring issues. I am a noob, this is my first PC, so I was just looking for anything that looked weird, but I don’t have a clue what I’m looking for.

WHAT HAPPENED LEADING UP TO THIS: This is my FIRST cut on my Crossfire Pro - a SPATULA in 20ga steel. I followed the steps in the YouTube tutorials and set the machine to what they had it set as. I am a noob, so I figured if the cut sucked, big deal, I was only using 20ga… WHAT COULD REALLY GO WRONG?

Well, needless to say the torch stopped firing in several of the cuts and completely stopped only a few inches into the last final profile cut. The Pro kept moving around the profile, and while the torch stopped firing, the air kept blasting out of the gun. When it stopped firing all the other times before this, the air would shut off. But, before the program ended, FireControl froze up and the air would not shut off.

I am a total noob to plasma cutters, so when the program was done and the air was still blasting out, I didn’t want to get underneath a table filled with water to shut off the machine, so I just flipped the breaker (which is next to the table).

I turned off the machine, turned the breaker back on, turned the machine back on and PSSSSSSSSSSSSSH. Air starts blasting out the gun blowing water all over the place.

I haven’t been able to find a solution on the WWW, and since it’s Sunday I don’t expect to hear back from Razorweld for a while. Brand new cutter, brand new table, brand new air compressor. WTF.

Any ideas?

2

On the front of your Razorweld 45 there are two buttons one is 2T 4T setting the other button is the
air purge button there is a picture of a torch and what looks like air flowing…
make sure you are set to the picture with the torch…

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Uh, well… I don’t know what happened, but everything is working now…

@timcki - That was the first setting I messed with…well, aside from the on/off switch.

When this first started I was actually pushing all the buttons and nothing was stopping the air. Since FireControl was frozen and water was being blown everywhere, I flipped the breaker. I put the machine too far back under the table, so the breaker was easier.

I pulled the PC to the front, checked all the wires, fittings, etc and turned the machine off (breaker was still off). I flipped the breaker back on, turned the machine on and it was again blasting air immediately. I turned up the air pressure, turned it down, no changes. I then started switching from “Normal cutting” to “Gas-check” modes and it was still blowing air out.

The only difference was when I went from “normal” to “gas-check” it seemed like it blew more air. When I went from “gas-check” to “normal”, it would pause very briefly, then start shooting out air again.

I even started switching the 2T/4T modes and turning the amperage dial, hoping that would do something… which, obviously it didn’t. I was spraying and praying at that point, lol.

So, I don’t know what happened between now and when I stopped 4 or 5 hours ago, but it’s holding air just fine now. It did sit for about an hour between when it first happened and I started tearing it apart, but I guess it needed more time to reset?? I dunno.

I did restart my computer as FireControl would start up and start validating the program, then get stuck in that process. I have a real cheap laptop, it’s new, but it was like $300. It runs my X-Carve CNC just fine, but seems to have issues with FireControl. I had to keep opening up the Task Manager to shut it down. I didn’t check anything after restarting my computer, as I restarted it and walked away for the night.

But, I went back out to recheck that setting and it was correct. I started filming to show when I turned on the air it would still blast through, but lines filled up and it’s holding air now.

So, maybe it was some glitch that I needed to restart my computer? Maybe it needed to chill out for more than an hour… I dunno, but I hate not knowing what went wrong. Tomorrow I’m going to film the cut again, but I hope I have nothing to report…

4

Get the plasma cutter out from under the table. Its the worst place to put a unit connected to 240 volts under a pan of water.

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5

Take all the consumables off and make sure everything is seated correctly and that nothing is holding the valve open in the torch

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I looked up your original order and looks like you were batch 1. The reason that is important is because there was a motion control board design flaw on those early units that acted like a receiving antenna for noise on the USB communication lines. Before doing anything else I encourage you to perform the repair shown here: FIX: FireControl Freezing due to Interference (L1 Inductor Mod)

I’m confident that will fix the FireControl freezing problems (also make sure you are fully updated on FC and the firmware).

There was also an issue with Razorweld plasma cutters that caused intermittent misfiring (torch commanded to fire, only air comes out). There is a quick fix for that as well outlined in this Razorweld service bulletin: https://forum.langmuirsystems.com/uploads/short-url/nm14W58lgqhrXNzSADkKNONEsUD.pdf

I encourage you to perform both of these mods. Once thats done, get used to cutting with THC off for a bit. Once you see how things are supposed to work, transition to some THC on cutting.

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@timcki - So, I watched a video where I showing my wife what was happening before I quit for the day, and sure enough it was on purge mode :disappointed:

After thinking about this all day and seeing the video, my best guess is I caused some sort of fault by shutting off the machine too quickly after the end of the cut, and because I turned it off using the breaker. I thought it had plenty of time to “cool” the gun off, but since the computer was frozen, water was blasting all over the place and I am a complete noob to this stuff… When I thought long enough had passed, it was probably only a few seconds.

I did try all the settings long after the unit had been sitting and there was no change. At that point I unplugged and unhooked the unit, took it inside to take it apart. I didn’t see anything unusual, so I put it back together, took it back out and hooked it back up.

I don’t think I messed with the settings after that, so it was probably in purge mode the entire time I was trouble shooting other ideas.

With that said, I don’t know how it got into the correct “cutting” mode when I went to check it last night. I can only assume that since I had it unplugged for several hours, that gave it enough time to fully reset.

That’s my best guess, but I’m pretty sure it was in purge mode after pushing buttons over and over like a 2-year old. Oops.

I also figured out my cutting issues were air pressure. I completely forgot the compressor was off. I turned it on and then messed with air pressure settings, but it didn’t click at the time that the compressor was off and the plasma cutter was working…so, again, noob mistake.

Anyway, I learned a lot about what NOT to do and was able to complete a new cut this afternoon with better success. It still tripped out during one of the cuts, but I was able to hit “Retry Cut” in FireControl and it worked fine from then on.

I think all of my problems now are in the speed and CAM settings. I took a video and it’s uploading to YouTube right now. Going to start a separate thread to see if people can help me work through those issues.

@langmuir-daniel - thanks man. I did find both of those mods while searching for answers and will be getting those done soon.

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