[WT85]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has experience with marking and etching mild steel when using a Hypertherm Powermax 125.

I run a structural steel fabrication business and we're looking at a CNC plasma using the Hypertherm Powermax 125 and FastCam software.

What I'm wanting to achieve is to be able to cut our plates and mark them with a part number as they're cut. I'm also wanting to be able to mark where plates join plates with either an etched line or simply dots to mark the corners. I don't want to be changing heads or consumables to do it as I'm wanting to be able to do it all in the one run. The etching won't be seen on a finished product its just for internal use so as long as the guys on the floor can read it then its ok.

The plates we'll be cutting range from 8 to 20mm thick.

If anyone has experience with this it would be appreciated.

Regards

Will

[jimcolt]

The Powermax125 is not designed to do marking or etching. Plasma marking is done with Hypertherm's high definition class plasma cutters......as they have the ability to switch to low amperage (less than 10 amps) and argon as the marking gas with nitrogen as the shield gas. The marking is done using the same consumables that you cut with...and the switch-over can be done automatically from the CAM job file. The Powermax125 cannot go low enough on amperage....and has not been tested with argon.....so not sure what the results would be.

I have done a little bit of marking with my Powermax85 using the Fine cut consumables at minimum amperage with argon.....the marks are legible but ugly compared to what we can do with the high definition systems, and since the Powermax units are gas cooled torches....they use a lot of argon! Further, switching from cutting to this process would require changing gases, consumables as well as feedrates and amperage....could be more time consuming than you would like.

Many CNC plasma machine manufacturers offer pneumatic scribes that work very well for your applications. They are mounted permanently on the machine and the part program can automatically switch from marking to cutting....

Jim Colt Hypertherm

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has experience with marking and etching mild steel when using a Hypertherm Powermax 125.

I run a structural steel fabrication business and we're looking at a CNC plasma using the Hypertherm Powermax 125 and FastCam software.

What I'm wanting to achieve is to be able to cut our plates and mark them with a part number as they're cut. I'm also wanting to be able to mark where plates join plates with either an etched line or simply dots to mark the corners. I don't want to be changing heads or consumables to do it as I'm wanting to be able to do it all in the one run. The etching won't be seen on a finished product its just for internal use so as long as the guys on the floor can read it then its ok.

The plates we'll be cutting range from 8 to 20mm thick.

If anyone has experience with this it would be appreciated.

Regards

Will