Posted by Franz [24.149.37.138] on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 23:39:27 :
I've used plasma cutters since the days of TriGas, and owned both Miller and a REAL Thermal Dynamics Pak 3XR. I will NOT own another Miller or a new TD machine. Right now I can buy another Pak3 XR across town for $200- and I just might.
My first machine was a Miller ZipCut and it spent more time at the dealers than with me.
Miller never yet learned to build a Plasma cutter, and under the ITW ownership they never will.
Contrary to popular opinion, I will NOT buy an inverter machine, if I need one bad enough, I'll rent and be shed of the problems.
Inverter machines are SHORT life span, even sitting on the shelf because of solder wiskering on all the damn PC boards.
Truthfully, unless you have NEED for plasma cutting it's a lousey investment.
Plasma requires higher quality compressed air than painting, or you pay for poor air in consumables.
Plasma is equally expensive to O/A cutting per foot, and more expensive than O/p when you factor in consumables and compressed air costs.
Unless you are cutting sufficient stainless, copper, aluminum to justify Plasma it's a bad method for the work.
With all that in mind, you begin looking for a machine by specifying what the machine will be used for.
Then look at Hypertherm's site and figure out what you need in terms of capacity.
Then, perhaps most imnportant, look at dealer and manufacturer support. Miller & Hobart, both ITW owned, shed all the old guys who knew the machines so they could hire EEOC quota fillers to read possible answers from a screen. Lincoln ain't much better. Esab, I can show you barrels of ESAB PC cards waiting to go back for Warranty rebuild.
Forget the SEVER dimension everybody claims, if you want that quality of cut hire a 3rd world immigrant and hand him a Carbon Arc torch.
THEN, slap a voltmeter on the outlet you intend to feed the machine from. If you have voltage sag there running a heavy intermittent load, you need new wiring.
After you accomplish all that, head over to the LWS still stocking machines, if you can find one, and take that dream girl machine for a dance. Bring along samples of what you intend to cut, and try the machines.
If you're having a problem finding a LWS with demos, consider he probably doesn't stock machines today because the company now drop ships for some fat guy running a "Welding Supply" from the bedroom of his apartment. Do you want to support that business model? Where will you get service?
Bet your azz plasma machines require service.
If you're still in the market, look at Fornay and HTP for the low price end of the spectrum.
A machine should be looked at as a 20 year tool. You have to factor in cost of use and cost of ownership, and you also have to factor in companies owned by ITW terminate support of their products between 7 and 10 years after the last machine of that model is shipped.
My 30 year old Pak3 in the garage is a good machine, it cost $2,200 1988 bucks, Its twin can be had today for $200, because it's old. Good in your view may be far different from good in mine.
Follow Ups: