New Life for old tips

[Wesley Nichols]

......I hope Jim Colt gives his opinion on this post, but I had a whole can full of slightly blown out 60 AMP tips for my Hypertherm.... welll.... I took an 80AMP tip, and measured the hole in the tip with a set of numbered drill bits... and then went over to my mill, (you could use a drill press too) and set my collet chuck (just to hold the 60 AMP tip) in line with the spindle and drilled out the 60 AMP hole to an 80 AMP hole and then faced it with a sharp milling bit. I tried one and it cut up a whole sheet of 5/8"..... Of course I went ahead and did the rest of them, and they've been working fine.. no problems... Of course if the tip is severely blown out, this will not work.... but you could save yourself quite a bit of money on tips.... Maybe this'll help someone that's helped me... thanks for this site guys...

[ronsii]

Hey wesley, here is an existing thread on the subject.... I only just found it the other day myself. Here I was saving my used tips all this time... I knew there had to be some use for them, now I know why I saved them I don't believe Jim has posted in this thread but I am sure he has covered it somewhere I just haven't found it yet

http://plasmaspider.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=31

[jimcolt]

Should work ok.....will not be the same as a new one, but will allow some more usage....and I assume that when you say "tip"....your are talking about the nozzle. In this business many users call pretty much all of the parts in the torch a tip! Hypertherm torches have a shield, nozzle, electrode, swirl ring and a retaining cap.

If you disected brand new Hypertherm nozzles you will see that each power level has a different nozzle orifice diameter, and also a different orifice length. Tolerances are held in our machine shops to around .0005" on the orifices length and diameter....and concentricity is key to longest life and consistent cut quality over that life.

When you drill the orifice to a larger size....you have lost the relationship we call "L over D" (length over diameter) which is critical to ensure the best energy density in the arc. Interestingly some manuafacturers pay little attention to these details and just get their consumables manufactured as cheaply as possible with relatively loose tolerances.

So, my suggestion....if you drill the orifice of a nozzle to a larger size, expect it to cut metal, and provide some more life from that piece of copper, but expect a little less in terms of edge angularity, cut speed, etc, as you have changed some of the high temperature physics. Use the reworked consumables for less critical work, use fresh, new ones for critical work.

Jim

[weldguy]

That little video here on re-finishing tips has worked very well for me. I never expected them to cut as well as a new tip and they don't, but it does work good and it has saved me lots of money over that last 1.5 years. If I am doing a job that requires best possible cut quality I would never use one but for most of my stuff its just "cut it out...weld it on"
Awsome tip...long live the Spider