I recently finished building a cnc plasma cutter. It was based off the JD's Garage Langmuir knockoff, but I modified the length and added linear rails. It's able to hold a 2'x4' sheet. I'm using a Lotos 5500D with a Primeweld PTM-60 CNC torch. Toolpaths made in Fusion 360 and I'm using Arduino/GRBL and Openbuilds Control.
I'm curious about cut quality and what I should expect. When I was researching plasma cutters and cut quality, I only came across extreme examples of poor cut quality. I'd like to see what actual every day cut quality looks like from lower end Chinese machines like a Cut-45/50/60 etc.
As of now, the only thing I have to compare to is the huge Hypertherm machine we have at work, which I think is a XPR170. That's definitely not a fair comparison.
Most of the images I've come across are either from higher end Hypertherm machines or overall views of completed parts. I'm curious to see what actual low end machine cut quality looks like.
For fabrication, I'm 100% satisfied with my cuts, but for decorative stuff, I think there's room for improvement. I'm open to any pointers on improving cut quality.
The attached photos show the best cut quality I could achieve on 10ga mild steel. The square is 2"x2". The photos are original quality so you can zoom in if needed. I notice that there are some waves in the cuts, but I've yet to find the source of that issue. The ACC is the acceleration. I've got it low because my leadscrew motor is lacking torque.
While the above cuts look decent, here's a great representation of what I'm getting on actual cuts. (all the same settings and material as above) The white paint really helps pull out that detail. The lower left part of the picture you can see what looks like a beaver chewed away the steel. This was worse before I enabled smoothing in Fusion 360. Smoothing also reduced the code size.
