Metal warping! Help

[janderson131]

Running a hypertherm 45xp on my PlasmaCAM. Been cutting decorative signs with smal fonts and getting a lot of warping in the metal. I have read a lot about speed and for some reason it will not make clean cuts at any speed above 240ipm. Which I know is causing a lot of heat to the metal but not sure how to fix! It seems like guys keep talking about speeds around 400 ipm but whatever my setup is I cannot achieve that! Using fine tip consumables also!
Thanks

[sphurley]

FineCutwithLowSpeed03_12.pdf

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FineCutwithLowSpeed03_12.pdf

(21.59 KiB) Downloaded 259 times

Have you tried this chart? (for those of us who can't reach warp speeds)

[janderson131]

Thanks
I will. Was also doing some looking on old threads and saw where people were dropping there amps down into the 30 range and that helped.

[plain ol Bill]

Heat is your problem - a water table will solve that. In lieu of that try spritzing w/ water during cut.

[jimcolt]

Correct height and speed is the key to minimizing warpage. In some cases when your art has very close cuts....expect more heat input and warpage.

Jim Colt Hypertherm

[tcaudle]

One of the options in SheetCAm is to select "minimize Cutting Distortion" in the internal cut rules. I avoids mainking a series of cuts in the same area . You can do the same thing manually by selecting different objects spread apart and assign them to layers and cut them in an order you select using separate operations. Metal warps not only from heat but from stress relief so it won't solve all of it. Misting with water can help . Spreading out cuts can help . Cutting faster can help but can also cause other problems on smaller objects.

[marcnaz]

Thin metal and a plasma cutter is going to equal warping. Like others have already noted, you can minimize it by fine tuning your speed and amp settings but the only way I have found that really makes a difference is using a water table. On my table with the water level high it splashes enough up on the underside so I get very little warping on fairly thin metal. I can pick the cut parts up immediately after cutting by hand. If you can alternate your cut locations and avoid cutting in the same area it will help a little also.