- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
- Messages
- 2,502
Here's a photo of the plasma cutter after I cleaned it up a bit. The torch output was missing a part which I had to
make. It was the plastic feed through insulator that was gone and the whole brass output thing was loose on its moorings.
I was lucky in that I had a piece of hard plastic that I could machine to fit. At this point I have no idea if this thing will work
but it came to me for no cost so nothing invested but my time. I might even learn something. There were several things that
would make the unit nonfunctional so I'm fixing each thing I come by. The current rheostat(22k wire wound) had a bent knob and it promptly
broke off as I applied just a little pressure to straighten it. The shaft was 4mm and I just happened to have a piece of it! On the inside end
of the shaft was a molded part that ran the wiper so carefully removed it and installed the new shaft piece. That worked out just fine but
the reassembly of the rheostat was somewhat difficult.
This is the rheostat with its new shaft installed.
The end of the hose was somewhat compromised so taped it up and applied some safety wire to hold it together. If the thing works,
it would be worth making a better repair but good enough for right now.
Here you can see the plastic part I fabricated behind the washer that holds the torch output hose.
The ground clamp was pretty poor so cleaned it up a bit and fashioned a new copper bonding strap. I made it out of the braid of some RG-8 coax
and used some 5/16 inch copper pipes to make a nice transition. The old raggedy copper strap was just press fitted under the clamp insides.
The innards of this machine were very dirty and looked like it had a fair bit of shop time in a welding shop environment. I used an acid brush
to clean the circuit boards and associated parts. The black dust came off easily using a brush that was shortened so that the bristles were
sticking out about a quarter inch. I need to affix a power cord on the unit and also make some reparation to the trigger switch as it is just
hanging out in free air presently with a loose wire dangling with no connection. So time will tell if this unit actually will do some cutting.
The electronic parts all look fine but of course that means practically nothing. There was no obvious burned parts so will have to see.
I think this unit has IGBT transistors in it but I could be wrong about that. If worse comes to worse, there are some good parts so I really
can't lose. It's a fun challenge to see if it will work.
So now, it smells like turkey in the house now and I take this opportunity to wish you all a HAPPY THANKSGIVING even though the
conditions are not the greatest these days.
Cathead @ CATWERKS
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