[rodlouvers]

Hi All my first post here.
I have a small fab shop here in San Diego and am about to finish up retrofitting a 5 x 12 MultiCam plasma table to generic controllers and for now run with
LinuxCNC. Most the products I make now are either 20ga cold roll steel or .050"thk 3003 aluminum. The smallest hole I will need to cut is .125"dia
(for rivets) . My natural instinct is to buy a larger Plasma Cutter like the PowerMax 85 so I can have more flexible capacity for the shop. But I am
concerned that a larger machine will have a hard time cutting the thinner material accurately (.125" hole in alum) Can a Powermax 85 or 105 be
adjusted down to cut small holes like those?
Thank you in advance for any help
Dave

[RoketRdr]

You can purchase the "fine cut" consumables for the 65 and 85 that will give you the thin lines and small hole cuts. Although you shouldn't expect drill bit accuracy cutting holes that small with plasma and expect some clean up. Btw...not sure if you're aware of this but the Powermax 105 is a 3PH machine.

[rodlouvers]

You can purchase the "fine cut" consumables for the 65 and 85 that will give you the thin lines and small hole cuts. Although you shouldn't expect drill bit accuracy cutting holes that small with plasma and expect some clean up. Btw...not sure if you're aware of this but the Powermax 105 is a 3PH machine.

Thanks for the info, I suppose I can drill out the holes but was hoping that wouldn't be neccesary. I am using a rotary phase converter for the 3 phase in the shop and hope to use it for the new plasma also.
Dave

[xjdubber]

.125 is pretty small for plasma, finecut consumeables would give you the hole quality. What did the multicam come with originally? did you cut 1/8th holes with it? You wont get a perfect hole but it might be good enough for rivets.

Edit: Likely to be just as important would be the software you'll use to generate the g-code (good lead ins, starting the hole on center) and extremely quick acceleration on the machine.

[rodlouvers]

I bought the table used without the cutter from a pipe fitting shop and they were cutting very thick material for pipe flanges etc. with a HP260(did not come with the table)
I have the original specs for the table and it says that when new it had 2200 IPM travel speed and 1500 IPM cut speed.

The majority of the product I currently make have .250" dia bolt holes but I was hoping to offer the same product with a rivet option.
Thanks

[vmax549]

I suggest that you contact Hypertherm Directly and speak with one of their engineers. You MAY be disappointed with one of the low end plasma units for what you need . You may need to step up a bit on teh plasma unit you purchase.

Just a thought, (;-) TP

[DareBee]

Agreed
With Hypertherm and thin material you will want a finecut capable machine, however if you seriously want to cut thin and no second op you will need high def machine.
Let me throw this out there - if I was in your situation - laser is the only serious option
that 050 aluminum will give you fits (too much heat and not enough speed)

[rodlouvers]

I did talk to Noah over at the tech desk at Hypertherm he said that the Powermax 85 should work well but I will have a hard time with the .125 holes.
He did give me a lot more info and the areas on their website to find some more also.

[rodlouvers]

Yes DareBee, laser's are the way to go, I have a laser that I want to set up on the table eventualy. I purchased it prematurly, it is a Rofin 5k machine. I got it in the shop and found that I will need to do some serious upgrades
to my shop's power to have it run correctly. So the laser is on the back-burner (sorry) for a while till I have more funds to upgrade the shop power. I thought a plasma will help
bring in some more work to help fund the laser setup.

[Torchhead]

One of the options you have is to get a Hypertherm 65 thru 125 and order the optional RS485 Serial port . That will let you dynamically change the cut current and air pressure from the cut file if you use the right control hardware and SheetCAM software
We have a "peck pierce" that will use the plasma to short fire and gouge a concave point but not go all the way through. Makes hand drilling pretty easy for the small holes and with the RS485 option you can turn the current back and set the peck height independently.
I have done mild steel down to 16ga. Never tried thinner.

Cutting holes is mostly about Physics and the table performance. With that much speed I suspect that maybe the acceleration may be lower than you need to cut small holes in thin material. Plasma is definitely NOT laser
Personally I would rig up a router on the gantry with a 3/32 mill and set it up to do the two operations (routing and plasma) . You will get perfect round holes on thin stuff. We do offer a LinuxCNC based controller and it will do plasma or router (or a plate marker) functions and supports up to 5 axis and 6 motors

TOMcaudle
Home

[DareBee]

Agreed - 2 stage using either a router or a drilling head would be simplest, cheapest, quickest

[jimcolt]

If you have excellent machine motion and height control....both are very critical to hole roundness, then you can achieve relatively small holes that are adequate for riveting, bolting applications on thin gauge aluminum. With the Hypertherm Powermax units you will want to use the 45 amp shielded process on aluminum down to about .06" thick for best results. Pierce in the center of a .125 hole, straight lead in and no lead out, use ohmic contact to sense the material (for repeatability and accuracy) and freeze the height at .06" for the holes (do not activate arc voltage height). The picture attached shows a .100" hole in .080" aluminum cut with 45 amp shielded consumables with a Powermax65 or 85.
Once again....it is not the plasma that determines good or bad holes! It is the combined motion control (stays on path at plasma cut speeds, excellent acceleration as well), the height control (ohmic contact surface sense before each cut cycle is necessary on thin materials), and the plasma.

Jim Colt Hypertherm

Attachment 308462

[ryemandoo]

We re using HPR400XD and it cuts perfect .125 holes using 30A consumables. Also consider getting a system with fine feature and truehole.