Power Consumption

[Andrewbcdueck]

I have a TD 120 hooked up on single phase. And I am wondering if anyone knows how to figure power consumption on this rig for cut time. I found this at Hypertherm but not exactly making sense of it. Just so I can put a dollar figure per minute or whatever.

https://www.hypertherm.com/en-US/learn/ ... egion=NART

[robertspark]

Don't cross post in multiple forums / threads https://www.plasmaspider.com/viewtopic. ... 615b2220b1

Is a TD120 one of these....
https://www.weldingsuppliesfromioc.com/ ... h-1-1734-1

if so... 15.3kW is the electric consumption.

so if you pay 10c / kWh, it will cost you 10c x 15.3kW = $1.53 to run it for an hour continuously....

I have no idea what you pay for electric per hour (I have no idea what I pay either....)

There will be some variation on this because of power factor and also current may spike at the start of the cut... if you think the number is 100% wrong.... double it and you have sufficent margin.

[Andrewbcdueck]

Is that at any amps? Surely it varies from 40 amps to 120 amps how much it uses?

[robertspark]

That is the machine rating, so it will be at 120A

You can pro-rata it approximately 40A = 1/3rd of 120A so the kW rating will be approximately 1/3rd.....

There are a lot of variables in this.... (power factor, duty cycle, starts etc, arc stretch [starting current]).

15.3kW @ 120A .... will at 40A be ~ 5.1kW

so the electric cost will be ~ 1/3rd....

It depends what you want to do with this information and how accurate you want it to be....
the machine will only last so long before it is thrown away (depreciation to zero)
The consumables will only last so long (number of stats + distance cut.... more starts .... less distance).
There is the cost of compressed air (the machine will require more air at 120A than 40A using 40A consumables.... because the orifice will be smaller)... All compressed air systems leak some air over time (charge the receiver up over night, come back in the morning and check the gauge pressure to see the drop... a leak rate also changes with pressure.... [its a logarithmic [decay equation] function])

One way to do it is check the electric meter reading for at the end of each day for a week, you know what has gone through your shop in a week, so you can just calculate the hourly running rate, as you have the rate over 5 days this can give you the standard deviation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_function

depends on how complex you wish to make things.... or again what it is going to be used for.