Cutting woven wire

[9er]

Anybody have any luck cutting woven wire?

I've got a need to cut some of this 1/8" and thought it would be the hot ticket to plasma.

[Gamelord]

Throw a piece of scrap strip where you need to cut and cut them both at the same time.

[9er]

Have you done that? Sounds like a really clever idea.
I'll try it.

Thanks

[jimcolt]

If your plasma cutter has an expanded metal mode....switch it on and cut away. Have cut this many times with good results.

Jim Colt Hypertherm

[TTS]

I do it quite often. It makes fab time a lot quicker when messing with that crap.

[9er]

Great! I have a PM85 and yes, it has the expanded setting.

I assume some trial and error but I suppose I'll start with a 1/8" setting since the wire is 1/8" dia.

[9er]

Ok, got tied up but want to give this a shot.

So I've got a PM85 on an Arclight table.

I just want to cut straight lines or boxes.

Would I load whichever tap file I want to use as usual, turn off the THC and cut as usual?

[9er]

Ok, so with some trial and error, (lots of error) I got it cut. Here's a list of a few things I needed to do.

*Set PM85 to expanded
*Turn off DTHC- in Mach3
*Set DTHC to manual- in Mach3
*Program power to twice the thickness of the wire. (it would not cut through overlapping intersections, and that makes sense to me)- in Sheetcam
*And I needed to sneak in and out a thin strip of sheetmetal for touch off. Otherwise, it would dive in to the hole on touch off and then drag the piece around (gottta be quick!!!!)

It works, thanks for all your help and hopefully this can help someone else.

[motoguy]

Did you have to disconnect your hub from your hypertherm, in order to cut in expanded mode?

[9er]

Did you have to disconnect your hub from your hypertherm, in order to cut in expanded mode?

No, I didn't physically disconnect anything. Just turned the knob to expanded mode.