The first time I used a plasma cutter was about 20 years ago. I bought one, also a Thermal Dynamic unit, for the place I was working at. It was a good unit but worked slightly different than the one I recently bought. With the older unit you had to hold the head about an 1/8" off the surface of the metal you were cutting. There was a ceramic cap with round notches on the end of the torch, it held the head the correct distance from the surface. My new cutter, I was told, is made with the same material as the space shuttle tiles and withstand the heat and can be placed directly on the surface. A very nice improvement.

 

Look into longevity cutters especially if you don't plan on buying one of the more expensive brands. I did a lot of reaserching and took my time checking into different brands and this seemed like a good buy for my situation. There are some youtube videos also showing them in use.

 

I also did a lot of research on plasma cutters.

One major consideration for me was part availlability. I wanted to be able to get parts ASAP because I use it for my business. The unit I bought was sold by one of my vendors and they are about 5 miles away. They are open normal business hours and on Saturdays.

 

Yeah. I have the same Harbor Freight plasma cutter. It works flawlessly and I have used it to cut up very rusty scrap metal including 6 of my old Widow-Maker wheels!

Harbor Freight's warranty is not all that great. It only replaces the unit if it breaks.

If it breaks after the warranty (standard or extended) is up, you throw it away and buy another one.

There are people out there in "radio-land" that can repair it and it uses readily available standard parts but Harbor Freight Tech Support is of no help.....when I called them they didn't even have schematic or parts info. (although they might have it now...)

If I had it to do over again, I would get a Miller or Thermal Dynamics unit.


Cheers,


Rick




I

 

Kevin,

I have this unit, wife and kids got it for me for Fathers Day last year. I like it a lot. I did find that it works MUCH better on 220 than 110. Sometimes it doesn't want to arch on 110 unless the metal is pristine, that is not a problem on 220.

Good luck.

 

The major beef I have with Harbor Fright is that they buy whatever they can get cheapest at the time, and buy a certain number of units. When they run out, they put the unit back out for bids, with just general specs, leaving it up to the manufacturer to use whatever parts they want and cut whatever corners they can to produce the lowest bid. They don't order any repair or replacement parts, they don't have a parts department whatever parts you might get from them are ones they cannibalized off returned, damaged or DOA units at the warehouse. When they run out of those units or have removed all of a certain part there are no more parts available. There is no certainty that parts from one manufacturing run will interchange with another run of the same stock #.

 

the consumables for that plasma cutter can be purchased at any welding store.
it uses a thermal dynamics SL40 1torch

 

I have a cheap one I bought on eBay about 3 years ago,it's a 3in1 unit that is tig stick and plasma it working great and no problems so far.
Darren

 

I think you will find Eastwood, harbor freight and most resellers do not make their own products and shop for the cheapest bid within the specs. they may or may not supply.
The first page of reviews on the Eastwood unit are far less than stellar. The older reviews are good so makes me wonder if they changed suppliers.
Larry

 

One thing I try not to skimp on is tools, especially if I have to use them for work. I looked into the HF and Northern Tool units and did a lot of internet searching before deciding on the one I bought. As I said before, and I think has been proved with many of the statements above, I wanted a machine that I could get parts for ASAP and be worth having fixed. I contacted a local guy on CL who was listing "new" plasma cutters and welders at very decent prices. He told me he buys new rejects from local sellers, I assumed HF and Northern, and supposedly replaces the standard weak parts with better parts. Although his prices were very good I didn't like his attitude over the phone and I also didn't want a "new" unit that was patched together.

HF and Northern Tool have their uses. I do occationally buy a tool that I am going to use only occationally and don't want to spend big bucks for. I bought an air file from Northern, it was cheap and so far seems to work OK. I think I paid $25-30 for it. I use it about 2-3 times a month. If I had to use one on a daily basis for work I would have bought a lot nicer name brand tool from the local hardware store that sales tools to professionals, theirs run around $150 and up.

Nothing gets me more upset than to be working and have a tool fail. I have very little patience and tend to loose me temper fairly quickly when something doesn't go right, especially if I'm under a schedule to get something done. A malfunctioning tool really sets me off. That's the main reason I try not to skimp.

 

I have a
Hypertherm and love it

 

The welding shop I go to has some Hypertherm 1250's out of their rental fleet for $1,250. Do you think I should go for that or spend more on the smaller miller spectrum 625, but have it be brand new? I also have an o/a rig for heavy duty cutting.

 

My opinion, buy the Hypertherm. They are US built and the best. At work in the early 90's we cut 3 inch thick stainless steel under 40 ft. of water using a pair of their largest units at the time, 600's and introduced hydrogen at the end effector. The press release by Hypertherm was that "Hypertherm takes the plunge". It was impressive. Note that this was 20 years ago!

 

You can get the used hypotherm and put new tips in the gun ,you would be Able to cut thicker stock also if it was in a rental it would be will maintained .

 

What I was told when I bought my unit was not to buy too big or too small. If you buy too big it won't work good on thin sheet metal, if too small it won't work on 3/8" plate steel. I told the guy I would like a unit that can cut 18 ga. steel up to 3/8"~ plate and he set me up with a unit that fit my needs. A huge heavy duty machine might look good but if it make crappy cuts in sheet metal then it's not really what you what.