[webfnb]

Machine is suppose to operate on 120 or 240V however input power cord has a standard 110 plug. What to do to operate on 220v.? Need good advice please!

Thanks
Fred

[jimcolt]

If you buy a major brand machine you normally call the factory tech support line....they will help answer your questions. Can you do that?

Jim Colt Hypertherm

Machine is suppose to operate on 120 or 240V however input power cord has a standard 110 plug. What to do to operate on 220v.? Need good advice please!

Thanks
Fred

[flyinwilly]

The Ct312 looks like most of the low price inverter cutter / welders from China. I have had a Cut40 (i.e. 40A) for many years and it continues to work fine for light duty jobs. My unit had white, black, and green power leads. Some other units had brown, blue and green. The green should be the ground or neutral. When you take the 120 plug off, make sure of the correct wiring. Use the brown / blue or the white / black as the 110V legs on the 220 plug. The green will be the neutral. My unit was a 40A so I used a 50A 220V plug. Be aware that these machines will only develop the max amperage when wired as a 220V machine. On 110v they give 1/2 the listed amperage.

Willy

[Torchhead]

Secondary (DC side ) current is set by the plasma circuit. It cuts at whatever AMPS you set on the dial. The POWER to the cut is defined as the Cut Current times the Arc Volts. Primary side current is a reflection of the secondary plus the losses from heat and conductor resistance (efficiency) Bottom like its WATTS TO WATTS. The secondary draws 1000 watts so will the primary PLUS any losses from the conversion efficiency. So it might draw 1300 watts if it 70% efficient overall

If you double the input voltage you will cause the INPUT current to drop in 1/2. (WATTS are the same) The use of 220 VAC lets you run on smaller breakers and smaller conductor size because it's 1/2 the AMPS . It will probably run a little more efficient at th elower current but the power company sells power in WATTS (KWH) so it costs basically the same.

TOMcaudle
Home

[jimcolt]

What is so interesting to me is that there are a dozen or more brands of extremely low cost plasma cutters from China. They all look very similar once you pull the covers off. They all use torches that are knockoffs of old (20 to 30 years) US designs that US manufacturers stopped using as they developed better cut quality, longer consumable life and better reliability. These systems have extremely poor documentation (as this thread attests to), a very bad "out of the box" failure rate.....and no (zero) factory support. Yet people keep buying them and expecting them to cut metal with comparative performance to the well designed and well supported systems that cost more.

This poster was sold something that was advertised to run on both 120 and 240 volt circuits (and it likely will being an inverter), but has to resort to the forums to just connect it to a 240 volt line....info that should be in the operators manual or available on a technical support site for the product. Oh well.....I guess we bought Yugos as well.....


Jim