Plasma Cutting 3/16 stainless steel

[cuttinparts]

I have a job that requires me to cut fairly detailed images and letters from 3/16 stainless steel for branding stamps.

I have been cutting at 50 amps with a 50 amp tip and I am loosing the detail in the horse and airplane that need to be cut due to the kerf width.

Does anyone have some advice to get better detail from these parts? I realize I will not be able to get super fine detail but I would like to improve on it if I could to keep this customer from returning to his laser cutter.

cuttinparts

[admin]

What type of plasma cutter are you using?

Are you sure your using a 50 amp tip?

admin

[cuttinparts]

I am using a Thermal Dynamics Cutmaster 101 80 amp plasma cutter.

My mistake...I am using a 60 amp tip and running at 50 amps.

Thanks for the fast response!

cuttinparts

[admin]

The Thermal Dynamics 101 is a great plasma source and you should get really good results on your 3/16 stainless.

I would recommend that you try turning your amperage down to 30amps and replace your 60 amp tip with a 30amp tip.

Set your cut speed for rougly 30-40 ipm and cut some test holes (1" hole works well). Experiment with cut speeds in that range and find what yeilds the best results.

Use those settings to cut your parts and see what happens. It likely seems slow but the results should be well worth the slower cut speeds at lower amps.

Let me know how that works out for you.

admin

[cuttinparts]

OK, great. I will give that a try and see what happens.

I started cutting these using the cut speed chart in the Thermal Dynamics manual and the results were aweful. Now that I have reviewed the speed chart again it does seem very vague and it lists everything at 80 amps. How can this be the best amperage on all materials????

I will post my results after using your advice.

Thanks again.

[cuttinparts]

Your advice was spot on. I used the amps and tip you suggested and after cutting four 1" holes I had the best speed picked out and the job turned out better than expected.

Thanks for the advice.