Need Some Fine Cut Consumables Help

[howconman]

First a little background, I run a HTpowermax1000 on Plasmacam machine, 2 water seperators and a motorguard m-26 filter. For the past five years, I've used the standard shielded 60 amp tip for all my cutting (kerf, dross and quality always a concern but not a live or die issue for me) until now. I'm needing fine cuts very little or no dross and good quality, so I switched to unshielded tip with 40amp nozzle, this is on 16ga hot roll. I was impressed on the first few cuts, then the torch would not fire, took it off and the electrode had arced the inside of the nozzle causing the nozzle to plug and the electrode had arc burns off to the side of the halfnium center. My first thought was contaminated air, so i purged the system, put on a new nozzle and electrode and started cutting again. I had cut about 15 small parts and it happened again. I'm running 35amp, 165imp cutting speed .065 cutting ht. You guys know how expensive these consumables can be, so I hate to keep doing the trial and error thing. Any light you could shed on my problem would be greatly appreciated. (These are genuine Hypertherm consumables by the way.)

[jimcolt]

Which model PlasmaCam are you using (Model 98Z, DHC or DHC2). Also, do you have the part numbers for the FineCut consumables? Sorry I did not se your post sooner.....I will be happy to help you sort it out if you have not already done so.

Jim Colt Hypertherm