Author: MaverickCNC Plasma Tables

CNC Plasma Table Daily Maintenance – Tips and Tricks with Jim Colt

April 3, 2023

What is the daily maintenance of a plasma cutting table? MaverickCNC and Hypertherm have some basic guidelines for keeping your equipment running in excellent condition.

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Video description :

Hi, this is Jim and I’m here with MaverickCNC. Let’s talk about a few little maintenance things that probably ought to be done on every CNC machine on a daily basis and especially, some of them have, some machine have different effects depending on whether you have a downdraft table or a water table.

This particular one is a water table and during the cutting process there’s always a little bit of splash of water. Water does a great job of controlling the fumes but it does tend to splash up on the table a little bit and consequently with a downdraft table******* also if it’s properly designed does a great job controlling the fumes, doesn’t splash up but there will be a little bit, maybe a little residual smoke and so forth and one of the things you want to watch for, on this MaverickCNC machine is these V rails, these are the guide rails that go around.

It’s a very good way for a machine to be built that’s going to operate in a dirty shop because there’s a V that goes this way and there’s a roller wheel that rides on the V and the dirt that lands on there, generally falls off over a period of time, doesn’t build up very much so it’s a good way to design a machine and for a good long lasting machine in the shop. But you still, if you get water splash up on this part of the machine, it’s a good idea to wipe it off.

Take a look at the rack and pinon gear. This is the rack gear, the pinon gear is down inside. Maybe blow it off with an air hose. It’s probably not the best idea to use a lot of lubricant on it. I usually suggest a dry lubricant, like a graphite type lubricant on these because the dust will stick to a wet lubricant, it’s not going to stick so easily to a dry lubricant so keep these clean. There are also some on the side of the machine over there. Another good thing, every once in a while, just check, put your hand on the torch carriage first thing in the morning and kind of push it back and forth in the X direction and push it a little, back and forth, in the Y direction. What your looking for is backlash, if you feel any slop in the motion, then you have to take a look.

You can have something like a worn pinon gear, you can have something that’s out of adjustment, a loose set screw or something like that. Something you may want to talk to tech service about if you feel that backlash. That backlash will affect cut quality, it will affect the roundness of holes, it will affect how, especially if your cutting parts with diagonal cuts in them, it will show as a really rough cut on a diagonal so backlash is a bad thing. This is a nice tight machine. I don’t think we’re going to have any problems with this one.

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In this episode, Jim Colt, an industry veteran from Hypertherm, talks about the daily maintenance of a CNC plasma cutting table. Visit https://www.maverickcnc.com/ for more information on all of our plasma cutting table What is the daily maintenance of a plasma cutting table? MaverickCNC and Hypertherm have some basic guidelines for keeping your equipment running in excellent condition. Be sure

CNC Plasma Cutter

CNC Plasma Table Torch Height Control – Tips and Tricks with Jim Colt

MaverickCNC Plasma Tables

December 29, 2022

The fully integrated torch height control is critical to excellent high-quality plasma cuts. Maximizing consumables life with Arc Voltage Height Control equals saving money! How to work within the budget when running a light industrial CNC plasma cutting table.

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Video description :

Hi, Jim Colt here with MaverickCNC. Nice little table here, this is a 5 by 5, they also are available in 5 by 10 and 6 by 12 sizes. Very good motion control and everything.

One of the features that I like to talk about, with a lot of CNC plasma cutters and machines is the importance of torch height control, also commonly known as THC. It’s a very important function for plasma cutting that a lot of people don’t realize and there’s still, there are a lot of machines out there on the market that are sold with no torch height control, in other words the torch always stays at a fixed height so it’s not always exactly the right height off the plate and there are also machines that are sold with some really simple, what I call stand alone torch height controls and those are height controls that don’t really integrate and don’t communicate with the CNC control, the motion control, the electronics and the software.

On this MaverickCNC the torch height control is actually what I call an integrated height control so it’s actually treated as another axis so there’s the x axis and the y axis that move the torch around and the z axis, the up and down axis controls height and it’s very critical. A couple of things that happen with torch height control is, the torch, before it fires, it has to come down to the plate, has to contact the plate and locate the surface of the plate. That kind of zeros the height control. The height control then, before the torch fires, retracks to what is known as the pierce height. Pierce height is different for thin material than it is for thick material, it’s very critical for consumable life to be at the correct pierce height so the torch then fires at the pierce height and then indexes quickly down to the cut height – a physical distance between the torch and the plate where it cuts best, the cut height is always lower than the pierce height.

As soon as the cut height is reached, then x and y motion start and the machine starts cutting it’s part. As soon as it gets up to speed, another height control function called arch voltage control starts to take over and that’s reading the feedback arch voltage between the electrode and the work piece while your cutting and that’s what maintains real time height with an integrated THC and that’s what gives you superior cut quality and excellent consumable life. Another important feature of the torch height control is something called ohmic contact and that’s the way the surface is sensed on the plate.

So if you have a CNC machine that does have torch height control but uses the Hypertherm retaining cap like this as opposed to this retaining cap, this retaining cap has a connection for a wire called the ohmic connection wire so every torch height control system has to have a method of finding the surface of the plate. If you don’t have that wire on the front of the system your going to be using either torque sensing or what’s called floating head sensing, it’s a micro switch in the torch head that allows the torch to locate the surface of the plate.

Now if you’re cutting very thin material and you can kind of emulate it right here, if your cutting thin material, the torque that’s needed for that contact type sensing might deflect the plate down a little bit like this and then when it retracts to try and go to pierce height it’s at the wrong height, it’s minus the amount you deflected the plate. With ohmic sensing which is on all MaverickCNC machines, with ohmic sensing you’ll have this cap on here, there will be a wire connected to it, it uses a very light touch with electrical contact or ohmic contact that does not deflect the plate and so when it retracts to the pierce height it’s at an accurate, very accurate height. That dramatically improves consumable life and as a second aside benefit because it knows the exact height it is off the plate when it indexes down to cut height and starts cutting, it’s at the correct cut height too.

So ohmic contact is a much more accurate means and it’s definitely necessary and an integrated torch height control is the way to go for CNC plasma cutting

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In this episode, Jim Colt, an industry veteran from Hypertherm, talks about Torch Height Control on a CNC plasma table. Visit https://www.maverickcnc.com/ for more information on all of our plasma cutting tables. The fully integrated torch height control is critical to excellent high-quality plasma cuts. Maximizing consumables life with Arc Voltage Height Control equals saving money! How to work within

CNC Plasma Cutter

How to Cut Expanded Metal with a CNC Plasma Cutter – Tips and Tricks with Jim Colt

MaverickCNC Plasma Tables

December 27, 2022

The Hypertherm Powermax plasma is fully capable of cutting expanded metal. The power supply has an expanded metal mode.

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Video description :

Hi, Jim Colt here with MaverickCNC, this is a MaverickCNC MV machine that’s set up with a Powermax 85 plasma cutting system. I get a lot of questions about a lot of different materials, we’ve spoken about corrugated material, we’ve spoken about tread plate cutting – things like that.

Another one we run into, quite often that is system is fully capable of handling, is expanded metal. You might use, it’s metal that’s actually expanded and has, usually has diamond shape holes in it and typically in the past you had to cut it with an abrasive cut off saw, with a hand cutting torch, oxy fuel torch or something like that.

The newer technology plasma cutting systems, like this Powermax 85 from Hypertherm has an expanded cutting mode so you basically turn the switch on the front panel of the power supply into expanded metal cutting mode and then throw your plate on the table and you do have to, in most cases, you have to defeat the height control system, in other words, put it into manual height control mode, control the height manually but it does a very good job cutting that material at very high speeds.

Another thing a table like this MaverickCNC table can unlock for you and give you really good cut quality.

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In this episode, Jim Colt, an industry veteran from Hypertherm, talks about how to cut expanded metal with a CNC plasma cutter. Visit https://www.maverickcnc.com/ for more information on all of our plasma cutting tables. The Hypertherm Powermax plasma is fully capable of cutting expanded metal. The power supply has an expanded metal mode. Be sure to subscribe to our channel

CNC Plasma Cutter

Best Cut Processes for a CNC Plasma Table – Tips and Tricks with Jim Colt

MaverickCNC Plasma Tables

November 29, 2022

There is no one process that is going to be perfect for every application. You have to determine what is most important to as the user. Is it cut quality, speed, cutting different materials? That is going to determine what the best process is going to be.

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Video description :

Jim Colt here from Hypertherm. I wanted to brooch on a subject that comes up just about everyday on online forums or somebody on the phone or an email to me, customers asking about which process is best for them. You know there’s a lot of different ways to cut metals – plasma, water jet, laser and oxy fuel and a few others, you can use saws and others.

Those are the main ones – plasma, water jet, laser and oxy fuel that are used on CNC cutting tables like the one behind me here. In reality, there is no one process that is going to be perfect for every application so if you can provide details about the type of application you want, what’s most important to you, is it perfect cut quality? Your not going to get that with any of them, nothings perfect. It is speed, you just need the biggest pile of parts off the table at the end of the day? Or do you have to cut some three inch thick mild steel today and some twenty-six gauge steel tomorrow? Or do you cut metal eighty percent of the time but every once in a while you need to throw a piece of wood or a piece of glass up on the table?

Because not all these processes cut all materials like that. So in a nutshell, let me talk about plasma verses water jet verses laser verses oxy fuel and I’ve been in a number of facilities that have every one of those processes on their shop floor and they use them for what they’re best at. So plasma, think about plasma, there’s actually a couple of different big variations in plasma cutting, one is an air plamsa like is used on a light industrial table like this one, this one has a Powermax 125 from Hypertherm on it air plasma cutting system. Air plasma’s the lowest cost to purchase and also one of the lowest cost to operate so the cost per foot of cut which includes the cost of the consumables, the cost of air, the cost of electricity, all of those things.

Really reasonable with an air plasma cutting system. Then the second kind of type of plasma cutting is high definition plasma cutting, your going to see that on bigger machines, machines that have better bearing ways on them, different types of drive motor, higher acceleration rates and things like that and higher cost. High definition plasma kind of takes a step above air plasma. The cutting costs are very similar but the edges are cleaner. They use oxygen for cutting steel as opposed to air for cutting steel. You can’t do that with an air plasma, oxygen gives a better metallurgic finish on the edge of the plate, faster cut speeds and high definition plasmas are really the fastest way to cut most materials used in production between thin gauge material and say one and a half to two inch thick material.

So high definition plasma’s another good choice. Laser, everybody say “well I think I’m going to go buy a laser to cut the art work I’m doing”, may or may not be a good idea, you need perfect art work or really tight tolerances and you can afford the high price of a laser cutting system then maybe the laser is the right thing for you. Lasers have a really high capital equipment cost, when you buy them they cost a lot and they do a better job than most of these other processes on thin material, in fact, this is a stainless steel piece cut with a laser out of, I’m going to guess, probably twenty gauge stainless steel, very very nice quality. You can’t do that with a plasma, you could do it with a water jet, we’ll talk about that in a minute.

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In this episode, Jim Colt, an industry veteran from Hypertherm, talks about the different cut processes you might use on your CNC plasma cutting machine. Visit https://www.maverickcnc.com/ for more information on all of our plasma cutting tables. There is no one process that is going to be perfect for every application. You have to determine what is most important to

CNC Plasma Cutter

How to cut Diamond Plate with CNC Plasma Table – Tips and Tricks with Jim Colt

MaverickCNC Plasma Tables

November 25, 2022

MaverickCNC plasma cutting tables cut vehicle custom parts, signs, artwork and logos from Diamond plate with Powermax plasma. Using the Powermax plasma with a mechanized torch and Arc Voltage Height Control, Jim walks you through cutting anti-skid plate, diamond plate, traction plate with CNC plasma machines.

Be sure to subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon to get notified when new “Tips and Tricks from Jim Colt” videos are released.

Video description :

Hi, Jim Colt here with MaverickCNC, we have a Hypertherm plasma cutting system on this machine.

Just a little tip, we get questions all the time about cutting diamond plate or tread plate, often it’s aluminum, decorative aluminum tread plate or steel tread plate, it might be used in a truck body and because it has all those little bumps, all those little treads on it, a lot of people ask questions about it. It really depends which way you cut it, there are two choices one is to cut it with the bumps up, one is to cut it with the bumps down.

If you have a machine with no height control or poor height control – cut it with the bumps down because your going to have collusions, your going to have problems with the bumps on it. If you have a machine with a good quality integrated height control, like this MaverickCNC has, put the bumps up and your going to get the best quality.

What you want to do for the thickness rating of it, the nominal thickness of the material, not including the bump is the speed rating and the spec that you should actually set for, right out of the cut charts that are built into the CNC control or in the Hypertherm manual so put the bumps up, cut it like it’s just a piece of eighth inch steel, has an eighth inch nominal thickness and your going to get the best cut quality. It’s kind of fun to watch as the torch height control accurately climbs over every one of those bumps without making contact with the plate.

Very good process and it’s a good way to cut that material where it’s a material that people thought, in the past, they had to cut it with a hand plasma torch or with a shear and today it can be cut on CNC cutting tables.

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In this episode, Jim Colt, an industry veteran from Hypertherm, talks about cutting diamond plate with plasma. Visit https://www.maverickcnc.com/ for more information on all of our plasma cutting tables. MaverickCNC plasma cutting tables cut vehicle custom parts, signs, artwork and logos from Diamond plate with Powermax plasma. Using the Powermax plasma with a mechanized torch and Arc Voltage Height Control,