Precise plasma impresses

Enchant CNC Innovation's plasma cutter is shown here cutting a custom truck part in quarter-inch aluminum.

Enchant CNC Innovation is a fabricator based near Enchant, Alta. To develop more business and improve the efficiency of its shop, Enchant CNC recently decided that it needed a more reliable cutting table. The plasma table the Enchant team was working with did not have high-definition cutting capabilities and was old enough that operator / Shop Manager Jake Hofer knew that he could never leave it unattended. Nor could he count on getting parts off the table that didn’t require grinding and finishing before they went to bending and fitting. The challenge was deciding what kind of system to replace it with.

Plasma Upgrades

Initially Hofer considered investing in a laser table, but the price was too steep for the work the shop does, which is in mild steel from 12 gauge to 2 inch thick, and aluminum. The right plasma system can cover that range without a problem, and Hofer saw the potential to take jobs cutting thicker plate.

Hofer ended up purchasing a 6- by 12-foot table built by Arc Cutting Industries in Las Vegas, Nev. The Arc Cut Pro machine, supplied by Cascade Capital Machine Sales, comes with the new Hypertherm XPR300™ power supply. Cascade started carrying the Arc line of plasma tables last year and represents the brand in Alberta and British Columbia.

“We needed to go to a high-definition cutting system,” said Hofer. “Our customers were requiring higher precision from us, and this machine delivers on that. With this machine, I can just press a button and walk away as it cuts a plate. Our old machine just wasn’t reliable like that. Also, previously we had to do a lot of cleaning and grinding of parts when they came off the plasma table. We’ve been running this machine for four months now and we’ve been able to move two guys from that job. The people who were doing that cleaning and grinding work have now been reassigned to doing other prep work for the welders.”

Consumable Benefits

Enchant CNC has a small team of eight people in the shop, so all time savings are big financial savings as well.

“Our consumable use has also dropped dramatically,” said Hofer. “With our old machine, we could do 250 pierces per consumable tip. Those consumables were about half the price of the ones we use with our new machine, but at only 250 pierces per unit, they still cost us quite a bit. With the new machine we are able to do 2,000 pierces with one tip. That saves me time. The new machine also has a quick-attach system. I have two heads on the machine that take about three seconds to change; I usually have the replacement ready to go so that when we hit that 2,000-pierce mark, I just change the quick-attach and keep it going.”

Finishing Right

Hofer said that the machine has already essentially paid for itself, and has landed Enchant CNC quite a few jobs it couldn’t have done before.

The plasma table is seen here on the shop floor.

Much of the shop’s work is done for one customer that produces cattle squeeze chutes and hose reels. The hose reels have a sprocket in their centre that was originally specified to be a laser-cut part. Although it is ¾-in. mild steel, the customer was convinced that a precision laser was the ideal method to cut it.

“We just asked the customer if we could at least try to cut the part on the plasma,” said Hofer. “They liked what they saw. When cutting with a laser in thick sheet, the edge of the part might not be as smooth as you would like. The heat of the plasma, on the other hand, can make an edge very smooth.”

Focused Cutting

The XPR300 is being touted as a great leap forward in plasma technology by Hypertherm. The system is certainly much more efficient than previous Hypertherm technology. It includes a two-piece vented nozzle that, by venting some gas out of the nozzle, constricts the arc as it makes its way through the torch body to the nozzle bore, aligning and focusing the plasma arc to provide better energy density for a cleaner cut. It also has a vented water injection process that uses a vented nitrogen plasma gas and water shield gas that stabilizes the arc when cutting stainless steel and aluminum. In addition, hydrogen from the vented plasma gas is reclaimed and mixed with the shield gas, which creates a more consistent edge colour on stainless steel up to 0.47 in. The system can cut anything from 12-gauge to 2-in. in mild steel and up to 1 in. in some types of aluminum and stainless steel.

Arc Cutting Industries uses a Yaskawa Sigma-7 servo drive system to help ensure that the movement on the machine is as accurate as possible.

“The company uses its own CNC, which allows us to tune and change the setting to the new drives as necessary,” said Garett Lik, Cascade’s sales manager in Alberta. “Once the tables are tuned, they pretty much don’t have to be touched again unless the table is moved or somehow damaged on the shop floor. But if anything happens, we can retune the machine via the internet.”

Lik also noted that Arc Cutting has a laser height mapping technology so that the torch never has to touch the plate to orient itself. “The table has both laser height mapping and laser alignment, so you get the exact measurement of the plate for a proper edge start to each job,” he explained. “Also, it doesn’t have to arc before starting a cut, which saves on consumables as well.”

Software Savvy

While these advances are certainly helping Hofer and his team, it was the extra mile that Arc Cutting Industries went to adapt the table to Enchant CNC’s needs that really sealed the deal on the table. For instance, the way the Arc Cutting tables are usually set up had all the wiring coming out of the wrong side of the table for where Enchant needed to set up the table in their shop.

“We would have had to be lifting material over the controls, which we didn’t want to do,” said Hofer. Arc Cutting Industries rejigged the setup of the controls to suit Enchant CNC.

Enchant CNC Innovation builds five different designs of hose reels, as well as performs custom jobs of all descriptions. The have converted an older plasma cutter so that it can cut large-diameter pipe for manifolds.

Even more interesting was how Arc Cutting adapted its software to give Hofer an easier way to cost out his jobs.

“My concept was that I wanted the software to do all the paperwork for me,” said Hofer. “The system already could create a report that gave you your drawing of the part, the weight of the part, material used, etc. I wanted them to add something that would calculate a price for the part based on the number of inches cut. It’s unreal the time they put in with me to figure out what I would like to have, and they did it for me. Now, after a job, I can print out the detailed cost of the part with all of the other details about the part.”

Editor Robert Colman can be reached at rcolman@canadianfabweld.com.

Enchant CNC Innovation, 403-795-6557

Cascade Capital Machine Sales, www.ccmequipment.com

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