HF Start Plasma Causing Problems

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Rigo87
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HF Start Plasma Causing Problems

Post by Rigo87 »

I have a Lotos LTP500D hooked up to a Eagle Plasma 4x4 table and I am having some issues (what a surprise). The issues I am having is the cutter will plunge and pierce the plate but then the torch will turn off. They told me that since the Lotos is a high frequency plasma cutter that is what is causing the problems. Any advice for this issue? Also, would getting a Hyperthem Powermax 45 solve the issue?
tcaudle
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Re: Looking for answers

Post by tcaudle »

Since that is MACH3 you start with if its locked up or not responding when you fire the torch. HF start plasma are a problem and without voltage isolation at the THC and seperation (physically) of the plasma and an effective grounding strategy it can cause things to go bad. You need to locally earth ground the table, get your controller onto a separate "clean" ground away from the line that supplies the Plasma. Most vendors will just punt and tell you you have to use a blow-back start plasma. Most noise is conducted (over a connection) rather than radiated (through the air) . Radiated can be blocked with steel or copper mesh and its drops off in intensity with the square of the distance. A few feet of air is usually enough on lower frequencies.

The Hypertherm for sure will get rid of any HF start issues BUT its not totally noise free. Does Eagle still use the Promo THC?
Rigo87
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Re: Looking for answers

Post by Rigo87 »

Yes they still use the Promo THC, I will be earth grounding (through a seperate rod) the plasma tomorrow and creating some type of covering for the computer. How would I ground the table?
tcaudle
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Re: Looking for answers

Post by tcaudle »

The table should have the earth rod , The plasma chassis may need to be grounded to the same rod. The rod needs to be as close as possible tot he table and connected to the frame with a stranded heavy cable. Battery jumper cables make pretty good wires. The PC needs its own separate ground as far from the table ground as practical. In really bad cases you may need to put the PC into a metal case that is tied to JUST another ground rod at least 10ft away from the table ground. Any wires going to/from the table to the control box are possible antennas. Never run the torch cables close to and in parallel with any other table wires. Get some of the ferrite clamps for cables and put them on both ends of any cable running from the table tot he controller. If you have the Promo all nestled up in your cabinet most likely the wire connecting it to the plasma is to the full raw voltage and all of the noise feeds righ back along that wire. There is a reason they show the Promo installed in the plasma cabinet. If you use the raw volts it has to run all the way to the plasma (high noise and high voltage) . If you try to sue the 5V input it will smoke the device and even if you could (like the plasma had an internal divider) it would pickup noise and mess with the torch height . If you STILL cannot get the PC to stop locking up and you sheild the mouse and keyboard then you know what you have to do.....go to a non HF start plasma.
Rigo87
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Re: Looking for answers

Post by Rigo87 »

yea I'm leaning towards skipping all the shielding and grounding and just pull the trigger on the hypertherm =)
Old Iron
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Re: Looking for answers

Post by Old Iron »

I run an Eagle Plasma table with a Hypertherm.
The table does what Albert designed it to do and the machine is an old 600 I purchased new, years ago.
Rigo87
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Re: Looking for answers

Post by Rigo87 »

Thank you, Eagle Plasma has been good to me and I am looking forward to being able to run my table with Hypertherm Powermax 45xp in the coming weeks
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