Hi All,

Would appreciate some advice in regards to selecting the appropriate Plasma Cutter for our High School Robotics program. Currently I am looking at the Hypertherm Powermax 45 or 65 for use in a Precision Plasma CNC Table setup using the C&CNC Bladerunner controls.

Our school has been competing in the FIRST Robotics competion for 10+ years and we basically make these 150 lbs machines that move around and play whatever new game they make up each year. Most of the parts we make are machined from aluminum plate. Primarily 1/8", 3/16" and 1/4". Occasionally we make parts from 1/16" and 3/8" plate. Most of our work is done on either a manual bridgeport size milling machine or our 3 axis Tormach cnc. Last year a few of our parts were made on a Waterjet by a former student which worked out fairly well. Since we cannot afford a Waterjet machine, we were thinking that maybe we could do with a relatively low cost cnc plasma table instead. We realize that we cannot expect the same accuracy that we are used to, but if we design our parts for looser tolerances, perhaps a plasma table might be just what we need.

With that I would appreciate your recommendations as to which Plasma unit to purchase, which torch, and what consumables to buy keeping in mind that we are trying to get the highest tolerance cuts we can while keeping costs down to something we can afford. As an example, we know that the 45 is lower in cost, but does the 65 have significant advantages for cutting aluminum that we should consider it? We do have an older Miller Spectrum 375 we could borrow from the autoshop, but somehow I have a feeling we would be better off buying a new Hypertherm unit. By the way, we have never used a Plasma Cutter before.

We are also considering buying the water table for the Precision Plasma table in the hopes that it will help make better cuts and allow us to run the plasma table inside our shop.

Sorry I did as much searching in the forums as I could but have a short time table to make the purchases as our competition starts on January 8th so any help is appreciated.

Best Regards,
Alan