Consumable Life

[trucutcnc]

Just a quick comment on consumable life. Over the years we've found that the most common cause of premature consumable wear is air quality. Our shop air system used to consist of a single 13CFM recip compressor with a desiccant dryer at the compressor and another at the plasma and our consumable life was acceptable. When it came time to replace the compressor, we went with a 45CFM screw compressor with on board refrigerated dryer. We positioned the compressor as close to the plasma tables as possible to minimize the possibility of water forming between the compressor/dryer and plasma. Since doing that, our consumable life has increased by 1/3.

We've done installations where we used two refrigerated dryers. One at the compressor and one at the plasma. Depending on what you do with your table, $800 for a small dedicated dryer can pay for itself relatively quickly. Our shop table averages 4 -6 hours per day arc on time. That equates to A LOT of consumables if the air isn't right. I estimated that since switching to a refrigerated dryer, we're saving about $200/month in consumables.

I was pretty shocked by the amount of moisture we were getting through two desiccant dryers. Don't assume that just because when you blow off some air and don't see water, you don't have issues. It doesn't take much moisture to take out a set of consumables.