What would I use a Plasma Cutter For

So Lidl have a plasma cutter up at £80 this week. Which seems an attractive price if its going to be useful.

Specifications say :-

Cutting performance: copper: 1–2.5mm ; stainless steel: 1–6mm; aluminium: 1–6mm ; iron: 1–8mm; sheet steel: 1–9mm

Which sounds OK. Always assuming that its not like the low end MiG welders that are made too much down to a price and, in consequence, objectively too difficult for neophytes to get good results. (I'd had a cheap SIP for over 30 years and never got on with it. Found an ESAB Caddy synerigic at a price too good to refuse and "Hey, I can MiG" just like that, nearly.)

Never having considered plasma cutters before the $64,000 question is what would I use one for? I already have a decent selection of powered cutting gear :-

6" Rapidor power hacksaw, 6 x 4 import bandsaw, 14" throat Startrite metal & wood cutting vertical saw, 12" abrasive disk saw, air nibbler, air shear and a supply of 1 mm disks for the angle grinder.

So how would a plasma bring £80 worth of extra to the party?

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 09/02/2020 09:28:47

I pondered the same question and decided apart from a one-off fancy weather vane that I'd make a hash of cutting out... for the messing about I do it doesn't have any real application. But it;s a toy! I did offer to buy it for my wife for her birthday. She has her moments.. her reply was "OK and you can look after it for me but I'll still want the other thing."

I did wonder if it would be handy for stealing Catalytic Converters from parked cars ... But, being mains powered and needing a compressor, that’s probably not a practical proposition.

MichaelG.

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https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/p/diy/parkside-plasma-cutter/p29579

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 09/02/2020 09:58:37

Lots of info here: **LINK**

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/lidl-plasma-cutter.89053/

MichaelG.

If you do a lot of sheetmetal work, and already have the compressor to supply air, then a plasma cutter is a big time and effort saver: a few seconds with one will remove an entire sill from a car for example. It won't replace a hacksaw(manual or powered) or small bandsaw for cutting steel bar for machining.

Probably very handy if you are a fabricator welder but apart from making some jobs easy most jobs can be tackled another way.

Mike

Michael

Super useful link from the mig-welding forum there. Makes it quite clear what its useful for and that its a decent machine for the money.

I need to cut 3 and 4 mm sheet steel often enough that its probably worth me getting one. 1 mm angle grider disks do the deed but sparks & dust everywhere and they don't last long.

Clive

Confused me too when I got one, I got the 80A inverter welder

It's a great hobby welder, and produces nowhere near as much smoke as a transformer welder

It's not really a plasma cutter, but you can use it to melt metal out of awkward spots

So if you miss drill a hole you can widen it by melting out some metal and fill up the part of the hole that is in the wrong spot

For CUTTING metal an angle grinder is the way to go, those modern 1mm stainless cutting discs are amazing

Edited By Ady1 on 09/02/2020 12:52:25

I wish Lidl did a CNC water jet cutter for £80 - now that would be handy

Clive,

I have a '40amp' plasma cutter and would not be without it! You may have seen my posts on all the sheet metal ( aluminium) work I did making splash/swarf covers for my lathes and mills. I may have preferred a guillotine for all that, but lack the space for one. The Plasma cutter is the next best! Just be aware, you must wear a good mask when using it - There is a lot of fine oxidised 'dust' that is sent airborne with the air jet blast, and it floats around for a while. Also makes a fine mess of the work area, and most any horizontal surface within range. Do not breathe that stuff! Just as bad when cutting aluminium - a lot of silver dust all over, and in the air- maybe worse as the Ali debris is very light and floats around for ages!

My cutter advertises 6mm mild steel - there is no way it can do that! It may 'cut' it, eventually, at maybe 10seconds/mm, with a horrid kerf , but after 100mm, the cutting nozzle it stuffed. It does 3mm nicely, with some over-burn on the rear side, and 2mm cleanly. 9mm would require a British 80amps or more..

Also, DRY air supply - else you destroy the nozzle prematurely.

A very useful machine if doing sheet metal work.

Joe

Joe

Thanks for that. Nothing better than real world experience from people who do our sort of things.

Clive

Joe's review of the 40 amp unit is very helpful but has anyone tried 6mm with an 80 Amp? eg curtting an old brake disc.

FWIW I have a combined Stick/Tig/Plasma unit (inverter technology) which I bought second hand principally for the Tig function.

I have found plasma to be a dream - cut a profile from off the of sterlingboard and run the nozzle round it, no broken teeth on the bandsaw cutting stainless sheet and no deafening ringing cutting sheet with an angle grinder. Leg is only about 1mm wide so very neat too.

I was pleasantly surprised but even so I am not sure if I would buy a dedicated plasma cutter as storage space is at a premium.

The caveat with all of these 'cheapies' is to expect the diodes and capacitors to fail at quite a young age. If you know what you are doing these can normally be replaced quite satisfactorily but I would hope a better unit would last longer.

I'll be using the plasma cutting function of my multi-process machine tomorrow (today???) to cut some 1.6mm steel sheet that I had previously cut with an air powered nibbler. The (machine mart) nibbler has eaten two sets of dies cutting that thickness of steel. I know that the plasma cutter will just plough through it.

As noted above, they do produce a lot of oxide dust/smoke. Dust extraction is very helpful if you aren't working in a well ventilated area.

I also have one of the cheap Stick/Tig/Plasma units and find it good value for what you pay. Have had it for a couple of years now and mainly use it for Tig welding. Stick welding is much better than my old transformer unit.

I have replaced the Tig gun with a better one as I had trouble getting the consumable tips and shields.

Paul.

Just posting to point out that the one in Lidl this Thursday is a 30A model not the 40A model that Lidl have offered previously in other parts of Europe, and which is reviewed in the link above.

If you can use it to open a bank vault, you should see a pretty good R.O.I.

Neil

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Perhaps only a Piggy Bank vault, Neil

That’s why I was pondering the Catalytic Converter option.

MichaelG.

Must live somewhere posh to still have a bank anywhere within commuting....

I notice from the spec it states the compressed air pressure in kg/mm but does anybody what volume capacity is required (CFM, litre/min) ?