Cutting thin aluminum. issues

[CHAOTiC WAYz]

I'm trying to cut 22 ga aluminum on our homemade table with a powermax 65. The torch touches off, fires for Pierce, and then the torch goes out. If I run it a second time it will cut fine, but is very random. I'm using a 45amp, .01 delay, .15 Pierce height, .06 cut height. Cut speed between 300-400. And speed between Pierce and cut is set at 100ipm. I've tried 200ipm as well. Not using a the, and material is flat. Ive tried clamping the ground directly to the part, Any ideas? Or is it just to thin? Other steels and aluminum cut fine. Only issue is with this thin. Thanks in advance.

[acourtjester]

have you tried to lower the pierce height to about 0.080" at 40 amps. I think the pierce hole could be to large and you are loosing the arc Ok signal. Are you using fine a cut nozzle.

[CHAOTiC WAYz]

i have tried 45 amp regular tip and a 45 amp finecut, I have not tried lowering the pierce height, but can try that later today. By piercing closer to the sheet , I assume the idea is to make the pierce hole smaller?

[acourtjester]

yes sir

[Largemouthlou]

When I cut .050 I use 45 fine cut with amps set at 28. 180 feed rate no issues at all

[ian.]

I find thin material needs a short pierce delay.

[jimcolt]

It sounds like you have too much motion delay when piercing the thin material. Here is how to make it work: 1. The best solution is to shorten the pierce delay time. Go to zero seconds if you need to. 2. Some machines have software or hardware delays that cannot be completely removed....if a zero pierce delay does not work then switch your Powermax65 in the expanded metal cutting mode. It is likely that the issue is that the machine is not moving quick enough....which causes the power supply output voltage to climb rapidly.....when the voltage gets to a certain level (around 180 volts DC) the power supply thinks you have driven off the edge of material while cutting....and it extinguishes the arc. Either of my suggested fixes should work. Jim Colt Hypertherm

[CHAOTiC WAYz]

It sounds like you have too much motion delay when piercing the thin material. Here is how to make it work: 1. The best solution is to shorten the pierce delay time. Go to zero seconds if you need to. 2. Some machines have software or hardware delays that cannot be completely removed....if a zero pierce delay does not work then switch your Powermax65 in the expanded metal cutting mode. It is likely that the issue is that the machine is not moving quick enough....which causes the power supply output voltage to climb rapidly.....when the voltage gets to a certain level (around 180 volts DC) the power supply thinks you have driven off the edge of material while cutting....and it extinguishes the arc. Either of my suggested fixes should work. Jim Colt Hypertherm

I tried everything mentioned . pierce delay was set to .01 as thats the lowest Linuxcnc will allow. I made it through 3 cuts out of 6 total for the job, before getting a 0-30 error on the hypertherm 65. Air is good and dry, and electrode is good. I can cut anything 16ga and above with zero errors, but I tried the thin aluminum multiple times and got the 0-30 error each time, but at different times in the cut process. Can you think of any other reason i'm having trouble cutting this this material? Thanks for the replies from everyone so far.