Making plasma cutting easier

For many people, the world of plasma cutting is a complex and daunting place, with a cryptic set of rules that can be mastered only by highly trained technicians after weeks of training. For every change of material or thickness being cut, a long process ensues of resetting gas mixtures, tweaking pierce heights and pierce delays, and manually calibrating every last parameter to ensure a reliable result.

For many people, the world of plasma cutting is a complex and daunting place, with a cryptic set of rules that can be mastered only by highly trained technicians after weeks of training. For every change of material or thickness being cut, a long process ensues of resetting gas mixtures, tweaking pierce heights and pierce delays, and manually calibrating every last parameter to ensure a reliable result.

CNC Plasma Cutting Machine

However, technological advancements have automated the calibration process and eliminated the guesswork to make highly precise plasma cutting accessible to large and small fabrication shops alike. By working together to develop their technologies, CNC machinery companies and plasma unit manufacturers have optimized machinery control systems to take full advantage of the speed and power of plasma cutting. CNC technology allows systems to communicate to maintain unprecedented levels of control over the quality of plasma cuts.

This level of control is achieved by linking all parameters of a plasma unit to the same CNC unit that instructs the motion of the head, which allows the controller to compute all factors that might affect the quality of a cut. Anytime the material type, thickness, or plasma process is changed, several parameters must be adjusted, such as feed rate, pierce delay, pierce height, and gas mixture. Instead of adjusting dials and making precise measurements before running a job, the operator simply loads the material to be cut and then selects the material type from a menu-driven list on the machine keypad. The controller then automatically configures the machine and the plasma unit. This greatly reduces setup time and nearly eliminates the margin for human error, naturally improving job efficiency, production time, and job quality.