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What is the Plasma cutting machine?

Plasma cutting machine has the ability to drill and mark in addition to the normal cutting functions. The machine comes with a rotary axis to cut round and square tubes.The Machine body is of thick steel tube by precise welding tempering. It has high strength and rigidity required for heavy duty work. Hand held 3D controller with user-friendly operator interface, can store 32 job files, the memory can be enlarged to 4GB. 3500W spindle with large power.

The Knowledge of Plasma cutting

Plasma cutting is a process that cuts through electrically conductive materials by means of an accelerated jet of hot plasma. Typical materials cut with a plasma torch include steel, stainless steel, aluminum, brass and copper, although other conductive metals may be cut as well. Plasma cutting is often used in fabrication shops, automotive repair and restoration, industrial construction, and salvage and scrapping operations. Due to the high speed and precision cuts combined with low cost, plasma cutting sees widespread use from large-scale industrial CNC applications down to small hobbyist shops.

Plasma cutting is an effective way of cutting thin and thick materials alike. Hand-held torches can usually cut up to 38 mm (1.5 in) thick steel plate, and stronger computer-controlled torches can cut steel up to 150 mm (6 in) thick.[1] Since plasma cutters produce a very hot and very localized “cone” to cut with, they are extremely useful for cutting sheet metal in curved or angled shapes.

The arcs are generated in a three step process. A high voltage spark briefly ionizes the air within the torch head. This makes the air conductive and allows the “pilot arc” to form. The pilot arc forms within the torch head, with current flowing from the electrode to the nozzle inside the torch head. The pilot arc burns up the nozzle, a consumable part, while in this phase. The air then blows the plasma out the nozzle towards the work, providing a current path from the electrode to the work. When the control system senses current flowing from the electrode to the work, it cuts the electrical connection to the nozzle. Current then flows from the electrode to the work, and the arc forms outside the nozzle. Cutting can then proceed, without burning up the nozzle. Nozzle life is limited by the number of arc starts, not cutting time.

History of Plasma cutting

As with other machine tools, CNC (computer numerical control) technology was applied to plasma cutting machines in the late 1980s into the 1990s, giving plasma cutting machines greater flexibility to cut diverse shapes “on demand” based on a set of instructions that were programmed into the machine’s numerical control.[3] These CNC plasma cutting machines were, however, generally limited to cutting patterns and parts in flat sheets of steel, using only two axis of motion (referred to as X Y cutting).

Plasma cutting grew out of plasma welding in the 1960s, and emerged as a very productive way to cut sheet metal and plate in the 1980s.[2] It had the advantages over traditional “metal against metal” cutting of producing no metal chips, giving accurate cuts, and producing a cleaner edge than oxy-fuel cutting. Early plasma cutters were large, somewhat slow and expensive and, therefore, tended to be dedicated to repeating cutting patterns in a “mass production” mode.

CNC cutting methods

Some plasma cutter manufacturers build CNC cutting tables, and some have the cutter built into the table. CNC tables allow a computer to control the torch head producing clean sharp cuts. Modern CNC plasma equipment is capable of multi-axis cutting of thick material, allowing opportunities for complex welding seams that are not possible otherwise. For thinner material, plasma cutting is being progressively replaced by laser cutting, due mainly to the laser cutter’s superior hole-cutting abilities.

A specialized use of CNC plasma cutters has been in the HVAC industry.