Very first cut - any advice?

General Discussion
1

So exactly a week after receiving my AD I made my 1st cut today - just guessed at the settings really
Feed rate 1500mm/m
cut height 1.7mm
using a 40A back firing plasma torch

Any advice greatly welcomed! Looking at the severance lines am I going too slow?
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2

A year ago my first goes with the droid was also cutting up old saw blades! Made a slew of Shuriken throwing stars. Gave lots of insight on using simple trace and cut settings. My advice is to keep at it making changes to settings and comparing results. Jot down notes! Play with cut height, speeds, air, amps etc. One change at a time so you know exactly what gave what result. I bet you’ll discover you can go nearly twice as fast with less slag than what you achieved. This practice time gives great insight as to what does what and you learn the direction to go to get good results.
Then its off to different materials and thickness’s. Before long you’ll have a cheat sheet that you can reference so that you know your in the ballpark when running a new job the first time.

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Thanks for the advice Bob - yea i guess this is as much an art form as it is a science - Just glad my 1st cut was half decent, encourages you to strive for better.

4

Once you’ve run it a bunch of times and have a decent grip on expected results you’ll make a run where it should’ve been a sweet cut and it ain’t…. Thats generally when the consumables are spent or you forgot the ground!

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@BobD Yeah! :joy: That always seems to be my problem…

…FORGETTING THE GROUND!

@Matt_UK good luck to you, and as Bob mentioned, practice is the best teacher. :+1:

6

Thanks guys, day 2 and already got much better cuts - increased cut height from 1.7mm to 2mm and so much less dross on the bottom now - virtually no clean up.
I am now going out of my way to find things that need cutting on the little droid! Can’t keep me off it!