If you are buying a plasma cutter for the first time it can be confusing and you may ask yourself “Do I really need one?”. Before you head out and part with your hard earned cash, read these 5 tips for the perfect plasma purchase.
We have excluded the obvious things like 240 or 415v and focused on the things that are specific to plasma cutters
- How thick can it cut?
There is two simple ways to measure how thick a plasma cutter can cut. Pierce cut and clean or edge cut. They are both easy to understand.
Pierce cut is the thickness of material that your machine will be able to cut punching a hole straight through a piece of mild steel.
Clean or edge cutting is when you can start your cut on the edge of your material. For a good quality small 240V machine you would be wanting it to perform approximately a 16mm pierce cut and a 20mm edge cut. Manufacturers can be creative with their numbers. Often they will say they will cut 20mm, but this will be in perfect conditions. Out in the real world the edge cut may only be 16mm or less. I would not take those figures on face value, its always better to buy a bigger machine if you can afford to.
- Duty cycle
Ask , what is the machines duty cycle? Duty cycle is a measurement of how long a machine can cut for and at what amperage. For example a Unimig 45 Razorcut has a duty cycle of 25% at 45amps, so being a 45 amp machine it can cut for 25% of ten minutes at 45 amps, another example would be 2min 30 secs at 45 amps non stop. Which is a fair whack of cutting.
- Kva required to run
This part is only important if you are going to be running it off a generator. All manufacturers machines take different size generators to run them. It’s something to be mindful of when you are looking for a plasma.
- Does it have an inbuilt compressor?
Plasma cutters use compressed air to cut. Plasma cutters can have either a compressor, an in-built regulator ,a combination of the 2 or neither.
A plasma cutter with an inbuilt compressor does have its pros and cons. Mostly they come down to performance and weight. If you compare 2 plasma cutters in the same class the one with the in-built compressor will weigh around 10kg more than the one without the compressor. It really depends on your situation as to what you choose! If you are always near a compressor first choice would be a plasma without a compressor.
- Regulator
Some plasma cutters have in built air regs some don’t. If they do have a regulator it’s simply a matter of connecting an air compressor to the machine and away you go. If they don’t you will have to manually set the air pressure from your own reg, as per the manufacturer’s specs.
So there you have it, 5 important questions to ask when purchasing a plasma cutter, if there is anything else you would like to know don’t hesitate to let us know