A Hypertherm rep. demoed a PM 85 at a welding supply I worked at. He said I made an excellent gouge at lower amps. Turning the machine up was much more difficult. It was the 1st time I tried gouging with a plasma though. Try at lower amps to get a feel for it and gradually turn it up where you can still do a reasonable job.

 

Q1: did you swap out the consumables for the gouging consumables?
Q2: If you did swap out the consumables for the gouging versions, is there a different mode to set on the machine?
Q3: What air pressure did you use? Some machines recommend reducing the air pressure compared to plasma cutting.

 

A1) Yes had Hypertherm gauging consumables in place
A2) No modes to switch on this antique machine
A3) I have to plead ignorant on the air point, I really don't remember but I would venture to guess around 50 psi

Thanks all, I will give it another try when I get a minute and can experiment.

 

It depends what you're comparing it to. If you're used to carbon arc gouging with 300 amps or upwards, then 55 amps of plasma is going to feel very slow.
I use my 65 amp plasma for gouging since I don't have an carbon-arc setup - I've got a old nozzle drilled out a little bigger. Makes quite a nice gouging arc. But it's slow.

 

In another life selling plasma we had gouging tips/nozzles but I just told the folks to use their old cutting tips to gouge with. Turn the amps down to about 30 to get the feel and go up from there depending on the size of the gouge needed. You get pretty good control of the arc.
Poor mans light duty gouging can be done with Chamfer Arc electrodes if you have a stick welder. Nasty process any way you do it.

 

IC Weld did a video on it. Pretty good info. He is a wizard with an arc gouger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hXtkoi1kzs

 

I used a cutting torch for gouging.
Try carbon are and it hard to watch for fires with hood on.

But buying oxygen really cheap too.

Dave

 

I saw one guy on youtube used a plasma cutter to heat metal for bending. He basically took a bad nozzle and really enlarged the hole on it, so the plasma would merely heat the metal instead of melting and cutting them.

 

Interesting video. Might try it. Anybody know if this should be safe for the plasma cutter electronics?

 

I don't think that hack would effect electronics but hack away at your own risk.

A better option for heating is with TIG. Non destructive compared to plasma torch hack and post cool with Argon makes nice colors.

My favorite is OA and weld tip. No rosebud needed.

 

All these last resort videos. If you don't have torches do this or that. Might as well grab almost any aerosol can and a lighter.