Hypertherm Fine cut odd cuting with new parts

[cjdave]

Running a powermax 1000, fine cut parts, machine torch. cutting 1/8" steel at around 55" min. 40 amps and .080 off the plate. My question is it seems that when I put new consumables in they need a kind of break in period. I know sounds backwards, but for the first 15-20 inches of cutting the process sounds noisy, and I get a small amount of top side dross (usually more in one direction) I mean very small but it goes away and the tip quiets down seemingly 1 direction at a time then the cut quality gets better and I get a ton of life out of the parts (over 500 pierces and in excess of 3000" of cut ) cut is almost totally dross free and very little to no noticeable angularity to the cut edge. Just curious if this is normal or not and if so should I do something different?

[jimcolt]

It is true that new plasma cutting consumables need a little bit of time to "break in". If you look at a new electrode for an air plasma system you will see that the business end is machined flat......yet after a few minutes of cutting it has a pit in it that was created by the plasma arc. The arc actually wanders a bit on the forst 10 or 20 starts until a pit id formed.....then cut quality becomes more consistant.

jim Colt

[cjdave]

Thanks Jim. I was hoping you would see this and chime in. Like I said cut quality is great and so is consumable life. I just never heard of this before.

Dave

[jimcolt]

If you ever look at one of our electrodes for use in our high definition plasma systems for extremely high tolerance cutting with oxygen.....you will see that the hafnium insert has a dimple machined into it. These systems, with their extremely long consumable life....ould take forever to break in a new electrode. Because of that our engineers studied the issue and developed a pre-break in dimple that emulates what a couple of hundred starts would do, making a new electrode operate just as well as a broken -in electrode. We do not do this with our air plasma electrodes, as they break in more quickly.

Jim