Plasma unit brand question

[cncdrive]

To plasma guys a quick question: What plasma units are you using and what plasma brands and unit models are you recommending?
The target is to cut stainless steel sheets up to 12mm thickness.

[cncdrive]

Terry,

Yes, I thought about the Hypertherm only so far. But are there any other brands which work similarly good?
I think it will work with a proma THC or maybe with NeuronTHC.
The customer who will use it probably have 3 phase.

[Robertspark]

Me, hypertherm, most people I know run hypertherm.

It comes down to cut quality and arc density, hypertherm spend a lot on development / R&D everyone else seems to trail behind on technology.

the technical manuals are very good too (I've only looked at air plasma side).

In Europe you'll end up with a CE marked unit (they are ever so slightly different internally, different noise filtering from what I've seen on the schematics).

Other brands are Thermal Dynamics of "similar" plasma cutters, a lot of the big bran welder companies also do plasma (eg Red/blue boxes Lincoln/Miller)

ESAB in europe will provide setups where as most of the others seem to be of USA / china manufacture, Im sure that there are Italian Cebora (oops, thought they were Spanish!)
http://www.esab.co.uk/gb/en/products/in ... JcQAvD_BwE

https://www.esab.co.uk/gb/en/products/i ... tegoryId=5

It is worthwhile considering spares and consumables availability relative to the locality of use.

Not quite 12mm stainless, but there is a few nuggets of info here on 3/8" stainless + amperage required and improving cut quality (I'm sure there are many more posts on that forum too)
http://www.plasmaspider.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26463

[kawarider]

Hypertherm is one of the best. Spareparts are easy to get. Jim Colt is very helpfull, youtube etc. This is my choice for simple air cutting.

Thc can be proma if you stay under 3000 mm/min, wich is the case for 12 mm stainless. The neuron I am working on to change from mach3 lroma to uccnc neuron. Very nice combi I think. The only thing is compared to cs lab, the 5 V instead of 24 V.

[Robertspark]

Neuron is not 5v it is 12v

[kawarider]

I think the 5 v of uccnc is more easy influenced from noice of the plasma then 24 v like cs lab.

[cncdrive]

There is not such thing as 5V of UCCNC. The UCCNC is a CNC control software so it has nothing to do with Voltage levels.
The motion controllers always work with a microcontroller or FPGA which always work with 1.8V and/or 3.3V and/or 5V and so in the end all of the controllers work with low voltage levels, no matter if it is cs lab or whatever.
And our motion controllers should be interfaced to breakout boards which can work with various different voltage levels.
E.g. if a breakout board has optocouplers (and it should) then it can work virtually with any voltage upto the isolation voltage of the optocoupler which is usually a few hundred or thousands of volts.
For example the UCBB breakout board has lots of I/Os and works with 24Volts: http://cncdrive.com/UCBB.html

[cncdrive]

Thanks guys for sharing the informations about the plasma units.
I think I will advice Hypertherm to the customer.

[kawarider]

Thanks for clearing that. Hope to share some pictures this year.