I saw the owner of the machine shop where I used to work ~25 years ago. He
has an old plasma cutter that doesn't work, he said I could have it if I
want.

I don't remember what brand, but it has stackable power units and a control
unit on top, the idea is you can add more capacity with more power units.
Some here might know what brand that is, the company no longer supports
them.

He said he gets the pilot arc but it doesn't sense the metal and kick ON
when it's supposed to. He says a board looks dark like it may have been too
hot at some point and suspects a problem there.

I thought I'd give it a shot, if I could find out how to trigger it without
sensing metal, I could probably use it to make a CNC cutting table, the
torch height controller and the program could enable the cutting to start.

Anyone familiar with such a unit or the problem described?

RogerN

RogerN wrote:
I saw the owner of the machine shop where I used to work ~25 years ago. He
has an old plasma cutter that doesn't work, he said I could have it if I
want.

I don't remember what brand, but it has stackable power units and a control
unit on top, the idea is you can add more capacity with more power units.
Some here might know what brand that is, the company no longer supports
them.

He said he gets the pilot arc but it doesn't sense the metal and kick ON
when it's supposed to. He says a board looks dark like it may have been too
hot at some point and suspects a problem there.

I thought I'd give it a shot, if I could find out how to trigger it without
sensing metal, I could probably use it to make a CNC cutting table, the
torch height controller and the program could enable the cutting to start.

Anyone familiar with such a unit or the problem described?

RogerN



Sounds like the old Thermal Dynamics Stak Pak units.

http://victortechnologies.com/litera...&categoryID=50

--
Steve W.

"Steve W." wrote in message ...

RogerN wrote:
snip
I thought I'd give it a shot, if I could find out how to trigger it
without sensing metal, I could probably use it to make a CNC cutting
table, the torch height controller and the program could enable the
cutting to start.

Anyone familiar with such a unit or the problem described?

RogerN



Sounds like the old Thermal Dynamics Stak Pak units.

http://victortechnologies.com/litera...&categoryID=50

--
Steve W.

Thanks so much, I'm pretty sure that's it. He said he has 2 of the power
modules and I remember before he bought it, talking about you could add
power modules for more capacity.

I'd love to get it working and make a CNC plasma cutter, heck, even a manual
plasma cutter would be nice.

A guy I used to work with was telling me about how he set up templates for
some of the cutouts in electrical boxes and all the electricians at the
plant would have him cut out the openings in the panels.

RogerN