Ron@RLD-Fab

This thread is to see if you guys or gals out there have any intrest in getting things cnc plasma cut? and have any ideas or prices that you pay now for cnc plasma cut items? This is not a forsale thread!! I am trying to gauge an intrest and get some feedback, Thanks

that-guy

it would be a matter of your labor costs really. for plasma, your not really using anything but your equipment and compressed air. now if after the cut they want the slag ground down, or some finishing work done, than the cost goes up. but i would def say that should be gauged upon what your shop's labor rate is, but set a minimum work price

Ron@RLD-Fab

Thanks for your input, we could offer the parts both ways to save on time and money for people, our cutter is a large unit that will do over 1" thick so clean up on 1/2" and less should be nothing major at all, any items that you would like to see made?

wunfstmax

Flanges can be a pain, and the larger the plasma the larger the kerf which means less detail. I had powermax 45 on a plasmacam and it was fantastic but cutting anything less than a 3/4" hole was pretty nasty. A small used waterjet unit can be had for the price of a good 4x8 or 5x10 plasma table. The deburring, drilling/countersink holes out, and dross remove can be tedious. And if you want to use hrs most people who are repeat customer will was for millscale to be removed, nothing a belt sander cant take care of. All together for a head flange you can have almost an hour into a finished piece. Cutting signs for local businesses was were the money was at for me. I know it wasnt what you were looking for just sharing my experience, and maybe giving some ideas that haven't been thought of

Ron@RLD-Fab

wunfstmax, Your input is exactly what I needed! You answered a lot of questions that I did not have answers to until you came a long. We where looking to cut some flanges and brackets for off-road fab guys and dirt track racers. But the answer about the holes is what we needed a good solid answer on and thank you

that-guy

here's a question. how wide of an arc does your plasma produce? rather than have it cut the full mounting holes on the flange, what if it were to just blip the arc in the center of where each hole would be, then drill them thru to full size? we do that alot in aircraft prototyping where we make pilot holes at .098, then drill out the thru hole to ensure it and it's mating surface will line up

Ron@RLD-Fab

Yes you can program it to just pierce it at the center of the hole, Thanks for your info

EGJDM

The other down side to undersizing holes to finish drill out is that it can be extremely hard on drill bits and cutting tool because of heat hardened edge left behind from the plasma. wunfstmax is right a waterjet is where it is at!! It may not travel as fast as a plasma but the end product is more accurate and ready to go with no clean up!

redboost10

We just got our flow water jet setup about a month ago! thing is badass, nothing else to say.

Urinemachine

Really depends on your setup - we shoot on a slatted riser water bed so the parts get wet which helps keep the hardening action down as well as catching slag and such. We've had fantastic results with my friends engineering - he builds his own heavy hydraulic machinery - we've cut everything from sheet metal to 1/2" plate with no issues.

CRMB

I spent a lot of money integrating an HPR260 hydefinition plasma system onto one of our large format waterjets (around 50k), and for the most part, it's rarely used. People want waterjet cut parts. They don't really care if it's more expensive.

The only time we run plasma is for 3/4" plate or thicker where plasma shines. If I were going to setup a business around plasma cutting, I would start by looking at companies that need heavy plate cutting and finding out who cuts their parts now and whether or not you can add value to their plate cutting by reducing both their costs and improving their quality.

SLMachine

In my opinion the plasma technology has been well oversome by todays lasers on both speed and quality. We have one here as well and it never gets used

I assume your 3/4" plate in steel thus the only reason using the plasma vs the waterjet? I have yet to see the justification w/ waterjet unless your running a lot of stainless, aluminum, and exotics. There just to slow to compete w/ a laser on general purpose materials.

redboost10

well said...we do a **** load of aluminum, thats the reason we got ours

SLMachine

Yeah, dont get my wrong they are very impressive machines. Spent a lot of time researching them and talking w/ vendors and watching demos this past year @ IMTS and came to the conclusion they just serve a limited market, that and the hourly operting costs seemed to be a lot higher. But it your doing a lot of thicker plate and exotics its really the only to go.

Back to the original topic question. All i see anymore for the plasma market is plates, brackets, lawn art, or heavy plate. Anything that has higher detail or large qty is lasered simply due to the greater speed and quality.

Urinemachine

SLMachine do you offer custom laser cutting?

Ron@RLD-Fab

We have been looking into our local fab shops and what they do, The only shop around here with a laser has a max cut of 1/4" mild steel, So we where looking to pick up where he can't, all the info you guys are putting out there is a large help!! Thanks and keep them coming good or bad we want all the dirt.

SLMachine

What size power supply did you go w/? Hi-def? Torch height control?

Lasers have been around this area for awhile but over the past 5 or so years they have really taken over. I onpoyl know a few shops left running them nd all their using them for is over 1" plate as the lasers will do anything 1" and under. The newer plama systems have really seem to have taken a lot of the guess work and trial and error out of the setup and feed speeds but the older stuff really can be a pain. We have a plasma table here but honestly dont rarely use it anymore as its easier to sub it out to be lasered.

CRMB

It's just a matter of economics. 3/4" plate @ Q3 @ 55k on 13/30 combo is ~3.4 IPM in mild/stainless. On the hydef plasma ... ~40 IPM. People don't want to pay for the WJ when it's 10x cheaper for plasma. But below 3/4" the economics seem to pencil out better. But then once you go over 2" then you are back to WJ again. Even the hydef 260 @ 2" sucks IMHO.

CRMB

Typically that means they are running a 1-1.5KW resonator. Way too small to efficiently cut plate. The only plate shops that do well around us that use lasers are running 6KW resonators or bigger.

CRMB

I'm confused, did you buy a laser? I'm eye balling a 2006 Trumpf L3040 this year (4KW) and from all of my projections, the cost of operation is almost 3x the cost of operation for the WJ when normalizing the data to compare apples to apples on mild plate. This question has also been beaten to death on the WJ forums, and confirmed by reps from bystronic as well that sell both WJ and laser machines. Don't get me wrong, WJs are a serious pain in the *** to run, they break down a lot, but if they are telling you the cost of operation on the WJ is higher then a laser then they are pulling your leg. Lasers have some distinct advantages to WJ, but operation cost isnt one of them.

EGJDM

I will tell you I operate a omax 80160 and yeah laser guys love to say how they can beat up the waterjets on sheet metal thickness materials well here is where we have a option that they always forget is that we are able to stack those sheets and cut all at once. And I like that no matter what walks in my door weather it be wood, tile, granite,rubber, glass and plastics I never have to turn a job down!! If your looking for clean cut heavy plate thats where the waterjet shines like CRMB said! We are able to cut 6" thick steel plate with accuracy and have also cut 11" thick hardened steel on our table with slight modification to the tables slats.

SLMachine

No, i did not buy a laser, the market here is flooded w/ them and most are going fully automated. Do some machine work for a local shop that has 10 6k watt trumpf's, so im seeing the laser vs plasma parts first hand. What is your average cost/hour on the waterjet, curious to see where your @ vs what the reps project. Cost may be higher but if your doing 1" plate and under the speed difference is huge, that and the fact of shuttle tables or full automtion. Thus why i havent been able to justify the watejet stuff for small size parts as i can machine it faster and have a finished part. Like i said waterjets are cool for that they can do just curious to hear from owners why they went that route it cutting thinner plate. Ive heard mixed results on problems w/ the Bystronics. I got another buddy who works @ another laser shop and they just replaced all theirs w/ Mitsubishis and said their almost twice as fast, they've went automated w/ a 300 shuttle pallet system. In my area there is probably 40 or so lasers w/in 20 mile radius. To compete here on their level would probably be $5-10 million investment.

CRMB

My costs are around $18-$19/hr:

They were lower last year before we switched to all intensifiers, but for the trade off in inefficiency we have 500-700hrs up time with 2 hour rebuilds unlike before when we ran all direct drive pumps.

3.00/hr replacement parts (nozzles, pump parts, etc)
1.00/hr energy cost (0.04c/kwh)
0.20/hr water cost
9.60/hr abrasive (0.20c/lb)
5.00/hr labor (divide $15 operator between 3 machines on average)

10 6kw lasers? Holy crap. Around here we only have a few laser shops in the area that do heavy plate, and the one that used to do my parts was doing ~4 mil a year in sales with two machines running one shift a day. No automation and they had 3 guys knocking and grinding slag off the bottom of the flanges all day long. Bought their first laser in 2004. Not the most advanced operation, but it made money!

SLMachine

Your costs/hr are about half of what i was told not including labor wages by Flow, Omax, and Mitsubishi. Your electricity out there is CHEAP, im paying $.092c/kwh if i recall. I have a ESAB plasma table here but find it easier these days to just sub the stuff out to be lasered.

Theres @ least 3 shops that i know of that have 5 or more lasers in the building. The mfg around this area is highly revolved around the agriculture industry so majority of whats being cut is carbon steel. Also a few tube lasers in the area as well.

CRMB

I should note my costs don't include lease amortization of the machine, which most vendors leave out as they dont want you to look at that as an expense. This doesn't come into my cost calculation as we don't finance our equipment so there isn't a lease payment to write off as an expense.

New 250k machine @ 5 years @ 6% (total pmt: $290k), run 240 days a year costs about ~$241 a day or ~$30.00 an hour until the machine is paid. So add that to the average cost of operation and you are at around $60/hr. For a 6kw laser, I think my #s would be closer to $100-125/hr.