Why not use oxy / fuel? A cutting torch is about 150 and then all you need
is the hose, arrestors, regs and two bottles.
I have a Thermal Arc (Made by Thermadyne, who make Thermal Dynamics) arc
welder and it's quality is absolutely first rate. But at retail this would
have cost me $2.5 something K. That's fine is I actually needed to weld a
bridge or tank but I don't and I want to sell this soon.
We had this dicussion on hobbicast a while ago. So many of the things being
sold in the US are industrial / millitary quality gear for use by the public
to weld a go-kart together. For example, Miller welders as tall as I am that
the public buy and run on single phase expecting the same quality out. If
you are doing this as a hobby, a cheap plasma cutter will do absolutely
fine. It's not made to cut for hours and hour every day but it will do an
appreciable amount of cutting. Why would a hobbyist need something that has
a duty cycle above what most people use industrially? If you want to make a
buisness out of it, sure go for a nice good quality cutter, but otherwise,
I'd just use my oxy / fuel gear.
John
I have looked into various low-end plasma cutters in the 1,000-1,500
range, like hypertherm and thermal dynamics. The guy at the welding
store, when I told him of my interest in making a CNC plasma cutter
table, said that a machine torch (another $500) would be required.
That seems a bit steep for the torch. The main difference between the
machine torch and the standard torch is the machine torch is straight
(cutter not at an angle to handle), has remote relay hookups, etc.,
and some provision for Z-feeding, like the ability to attach a rack
for a rack-and-pinion z-feed arrangement.
Are there any other alternatives to dropping $1,500-$2,000? How about
those cheap "chicago electric' or 'century' plasma cutters you see in
Harbor Freight for sub-$600 price tags?
Dave
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