About to order my crossfire. Going for the razorweld 45. I have a 50amp 220v outlet in my garage. Will that handle the plasma and a compressor? What am I looking for in a compressor? I will be ordering the water table if that matters. All help is appreciated,
Welcome to the Forum …It’s more than enough for the cutter, but if you share it with a compressor it may not be. Depends on the compressor. Check the CFM rating on the cutter to size your compressor. If all you are going to run is the cutter, try to go 2X the CFM of the cutter for the compressor rating. You may want to run a separate line for the compressor because of in-rush current. If the compressor happened to turn on when the cutter is running it may cause problems. When you find a compressor check the power specs. and the MFG recommended breaker size. Hope this helps.
Nope, you will need one for both. Same reasons as tool junkie pointed out.
45A / 50A your already at 90% load, you are outside of continuous run territory on that one outlet alone. It should be fine for the cutter, as long as your not trying to run a production 24/7 cut shop. You want your load to be 80% of rating or less for continuous use.
Since you need a second outlet anyway i would leave the 50A for the air compressor, and get 60A installed for the cutter if your panel and mains wiring has enough space.
For a compressor size it to handle the cutter or a air paint gun whichever is larger, get one rated about 20 to 200%+ over the higher demand rating. Ideally 1,000,000,000X the cfm rating it can never be big enough lol.
Also get some form of air dryer, water + tips = spending all your money on tips.
You will enjoy the water table, much less mess, much less fire danger.
Its an exciting machine. Have Fun.
Fielding, not to step on your toes, but I think your math is a little off. The Razorcut 45 has a rated output power of 5.5KVA at 90% efficiency. That means the input power would be 6.1KVA, on a 220v circuit the input current would be 27.77 Amps. I run mine on a 30 Amp breaker, you could go a little bigger but I’ve never had it trip. They put 50A plugs on them for convenience but should be backed by a smaller breaker.
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Gnixon, check your breaker that feeds your 50Amp receptical to see what you really have. Just because it’s a 50Amp receptical doesn’t mean it’s wired for 50Amps. Just a place to start.
Hope this helps.
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no prob.
I looked up a spec sheet for it and it said 45A@220V, that’s what i was working off of. but the manual says 45A@90V output. paperwork quality issue.
Went with the RW 30 to start. Had to save some funds somewhere. I’ll make some money then upgrade to a hypertherm later. I have to have a second 220v line ran in the garage. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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IMO you have to know what you’re looking and then plan accordingly to make sure there are no bottlenecks. I’d hate for someone to go through the trouble of running a 220V compressor, spend the extra money for a big 5HP machine and then barely run your machine enough to make it worth your while.
To give you an idea of the bottlenecks, they are:
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The Crossfire table. Like it or not, this table is not only small, but slow and a little unsteady compared to the larger ones… which granted are much, much more expensive. What this means is that you’re a) not always going to be able to cut at the fastest speeds because the table will move around a little, causing a little accuracy loss and b) you might not need all that amperage of a cutter if you aren’t cutting thick pieces. If you’re running small production or a hobby it should be fine, but bear in mind you’ll be going much slower than the big boys… which is fine by me… Hell I’d venture to guess that a lot of cutters out there that we recommend are much too fast for this table.
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The cutter. Max amperage means less to me than the duty-cycle at said amperage, because all these machines are going to be running for a period of time. You’ll want to get an idea of what you plan on cutting, and if it’s more than the cutter’s DC can handle, are you ok with having to stop the machine in the middle of a piece in order for the plasma cutter to cool down? For example I have the RW45 which sports a 30% duty cycle at max amperage, which is what I use to cut 3/16 and above. Theoretically my machine could be shutting down after ~3 minutes of continuous cutting, which is probably more like 4 minutes of cutting a piece. I’m ok with that, barely, but your machine will have different specs.
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The compressor. (pardon in advance for the poor wording). Your standard 110V, 20A “normal” plug in 30 gallon compressor will have a kick-in at around 120psi and cut-out at ~160psi. While your cutting your compressor will be losing PSI until it’s hits it’s kick-in point, and then will begin trying to fill itself at it’s CFM rating for that compressor.
So if your compressor is rated at 5CFM and your Cutter is using 6.5CFM, what will happen is you’ll be cutting for about a minute or so until your compressor “kicks in”, and then it will be trying to replace the pressure at a rate that’s slightly less than your cutter is. It basically becomes a race for the piece to get completed before your compressor PSI hits a rate that’s not acceptable to cut with… for me that’s around 75PSI. I’ve run my 30 Gallon, 110V compressor for a full-bore 11 minutes, and it never dipped below 90PSI.
IMO, the compressor is where I’d skimp if I had to do it all again. And the machine-torch is where I’d splurge a little. As far as drying the air, again it really depends on where you live. Some climates are fine with just a simple setup like a motorguard, while others will require much more. I’d recommend running the test that Jim Colt of Hypertherm does in the following link, and starting small and cheap, it might be all you need.
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water table is a must. messy yes but well worth it. plasma cutters like lots if air. more the better. check with your machibe for min requirments. i love my crossfire set up