On 07 Aug 2003 16:55:26 GMT, (AZOTIC) wrote:
I was given a vintage airco plasma cutter with two torches, one
is a hand held torch the other is a machine mount torch, the back of
machine has two inlets for gas one is marked nitrogen the other is
marked air/co2.I don't have any nitrogen and was wondering if i can
substitute straight argon to test the cutter for a short period before
i go out and buy a nitrogen tank ? The machine appears to be working
when i power it up and i don't want to damage anything since its a nice
50amp cutter 220v single phase and the price was right, just haul it off.

Big plasma cutters use dry nitrogen as the cutting gas, and use air
just to cool the torch. You can use dry air for both purposes, though
tip life won't be quite as good. That's usually not a problem if you're
only doing hand cutting as an amateur, but becomes an issue if the
machine is used 24/7 to do machine cutting.

Gary

On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 17:19:58 GMT, Gunner wrote:
Why not simply put air into the port marked air/co2?

You have to do that. Air is what's used to cool the torch. But you need
a cutting gas too. Dry nitrogen is what's normally used in machine torches
because it doesn't erode the tips quite as fast as air. But for hand cutting,
you can just use dry air in both ports.

Gary