• Prerequisites
• Prep your design
• What to bring
• Setup
  • Workpiece setup
  • Software setup
    • Generate G-code
    • Align the part on the workpiece
  • Machine setup
• Cutting
• Postprocessing
• Shutting down
• Tips and tricks

To understand the content on this page, you should

• have Ware Lab weld shop access (see: Getting Weld Lab Access)

Before you rush off to the weld shop, it is important that your design is suitable for the plasma cutter.

Firstly, do not expect the machine to work well with small features. Any part with "small" features ("small" defined as <=0.125" in diameter) has failed or turned out very poorly every time we've tried. Even with slightly larger parts, the result can be unacceptable. Trying to cut small features with the plasma cutter has always resulted in additional manual work (often milling).

When I must machine a part with small features, I use the Water Jet. The plasma cutter is old and cheap; the water jet is new and expensive. As such, a significantly better experience can be had with—not to mention the product produced by—the FLOW water jet at the AEDL. Regardless, I strongly prefer using the water jet.

If you must use the plasma cutter, you will need to modify your part to account for the kerf. To do this, we usually follow these steps:

1. Filter faces
2. Surface knit
3. Press Ctrl A to select all
4. Thicken by 0.050 of an inch
5. Switch document units to Inches
6. Export DXF

• Your Ware Lab weld shop badge
• Pencil or pen to sign in
  • You may also want to mark your piece
• USB flash drive with your DXF file(s) exported in inches
• Safety glasses
• Your workpiece, a flat piece of metal
  • To my knowledge, the machine has only been used thus far for steel and aluminum. Our team has cut with many types of both.
  • Steel works better than aluminum, but we've gotten aluminum to cut well by tinkering with the settings. You can continue experimenting and updating the best settings on this page.
• It is recommended, although not strictly required, to wear jeans and leather shoes whenever you're in the weld shop.
  • If you have never run the plasma cutter or seen it run before, know that there will be a lot of hot stuff flying around. I find that shorts and tennis shoes are OK if I stand far away from the machine when it is cutting, but do this at your own risk.
• You may want to have additional consumables on hand.
  • If I care about a part cutting well (it's not a practice piece), I always check the consumable components of the plasma cutter before cutting.
  • More on this later, but the three parts are: electrodes, nozzles, and shields. The team should own some or you can ask Phil for some if they're in bad shape.

First, sign in on the sign-in sheet.

Place your workpiece (a piece of sheet metal) on the bed. I usually place mine somewhere in the middle because I don't want some of it outside the machine's limits and want the freedom to set my Home position, as often it is not on the part or workpiece.

Note: If the tool head isn't in the back corner, push it into the back corner to give your workpiece room. This will also help when homing the machine. If it doesn't want to move, chances are, the software is already open and you can go in there and click a button that says "ALL OFF" to shut off the motors. Then, close the software and push the tool head.

Optional: You may want to clamp your workpiece down to the table. This helps prevent warping in larger or longer cuts. Phil recommends placing something heavy on the workpiece, but I find this gets in the way too often. Instead, I usually drill holes where I'm sure I don't need material and zip tie it down to the slats, hard.

Now, take the ground connection and place it on your material. Anywhere off to the side should be fine. If you are lucky enough to be using steel, you can turn the handle on the head of this connector to engage an electromagnet for a better connection.

Now that our workpiece is set up, go to the computer and plug in your flash drive with your DXF(s). Launch the software, Dynatorch SuperBee whatever-its-called. (Hey, you, reading this. Help me out and put the name of the software, please!)

The machine should now automatically home to the back corner. If you pushed the tool head as I suggested, this will take ~1 second.

Open your DXF file using Converter -> Dynatorch and then select Open. (Again, please correct me if this is wrong. If this is right, please remove this comment.) Your part should be in the window, but usually small and potentially partially offscreen. To fix this, click Zoom. (Or something similar. One of the buttons should automatically cause your part to fit the screen.) Alternatively, Zoom in can be used to draw a box that becomes the view. This can be helpful to zoom in on sections of an intricate workpiece, but usually, such pieces won't work with the plasma cutter (as stated before).

Now we tell the machine which lines/curves we want to cut. Select Start to begin this process.

Note: It is crucial that you work inside out. If you were to cut your outermost profile before all internal features, the part would be free from the rest of your workpiece, losing connection to its ground and moving, resulting in an imperfect workpiece (if you are ever able to get the ground back on).

Select Lead in and begin clicking near the curves you wish to cut. You have only one chance to click Ooops to undo. That is, you can only undo 1 step at a time. If you were to make a mistake and then click again, you would have to redo the entire part by importing it again. Finish with the outermost profile curve, thinking about where your lead-in will be on your material.

What is a lead in?

When the plasma cutter begins to cut, a huge stream of electrons flows as the tool head is stationary, allowing for full penetration of the material. This results in a circle that is a bit larger in diameter than the usual kerf.

If cutting a circle, for example, it will look like you drilled a hole on the edge of the circle.

This is why someone invented the idea of a lead-in. A lead-in begins the cut off of the curve on some scrap. If you are cutting an internal feature, such as a circle within a larger piece, then the center of the circle is waste material anyway. If you are cutting a profile, then the outside of this profile is scrap material. So, if we begin our cut a little bit off of the curve, we can cut a clean curve.

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Once you have successfully selected each desired curve, click End. If this is a large, multifaceted, or repeated piece, save this as a .tap file to your flash drive. Then, you can load this at another time without having to select your lines again. Select Close to return to the regular software with your G-code generated.

You should now see your part, in white, on the screen over the table. If not, at the bottom, there are two buttons: Table view and Part view that can help locate your part within the table.

To align your part to the exact location you desire on your workpiece, you will move the tool head using the onscreen controls and set home positions. Eventually, you will get it where you want it.

Here is the process I use:

1. Move the tool head to a guessed Home position using the onscreen buttons X-, X+, Y-, and Y+. You should not need to move Z as it should be as high as possible, but you can using the (uparrow) Torch and (downarrow) Torch buttons.
2. Select Home XY
3. Right-click on a "corner" of your part in the software and select Go to ... (where ... is the XY coordinate where you right clicked). This moves the tool head to above that location of your part.
4. Repeat Step 3 with all "corners" until you have either spotted an alignment error or are satisfied with your alignment.
5. If you spotted an alignment error, repeat the process with an updated guessed Home position.

Note: If you know a little G-code, you can usually find the outer profile line in the list of commands in the bottom right corner of the screen. By selecting this command and running the machine, you can watch it trace the whole outer profile. Be 100% sure that the machine is off. This is not something to do your first time.

Okay, so we now have our workpiece mounted and grounded, as well as our part's G-code generated and placed in the desired location of our workpiece. Now is when I like to get set up the machine to cut.

If you are cutting aluminum, it is absolutely critical that you turn on the bubbles or you will cause an explosion. There is a valve at the back of the machine. If you don't know, ASK.

While at the back of the machine, look to the wall for yet another air valve and ensure this is ON. This is the air to the tool head, so it won't try to cut without it. It is usually left on, but every so often someone shuts it off.

At the blue cabinet with the computer, open the bottom compartment. You can now see the Dynatorch machine. Reach around to the back and turn the knob 90°. The front display should now be illuminated.

Now is the time to input your settings. You probably want to use the default cutting mode (2nd from the top of the 4 choices). The other two critical settings, heat (A) and speed (%), are subject to change based on the material and the thickness of your workpiece. If you're not sure, I'd recommend practicing with a small piece, such as a circle 1" in diameter (on scrap). For steel, I recommend copying the settings in the Notepad on the machine. For aluminum, I strongly recommend against that and instead recommend going much cooler, such as about 45A and 110% for 1/8" 6061.

Now we are ready to cut. Protect everyone by closing the blue curtain completely around the machine. You may also want to wear ear plugs.

Click the lightning bolt to enable cutting. Now, click Start Cycle.

Your part almost certainly has some dross. Whenever possible, I recommend using a deburring tool over a hand file because it seems to give the best end result without too much elbow grease. Excessive dross may make this difficult, in which case, a quick pass over the belt sander can be useful before deburring by hand. Feel free to experiment, though, this is just what has worked for me.

With your parts all cut, it is time to shut down. Basically, reverse all the Setup instructions. Please leave the tool head in the back corner for the next person. I do not recommend shutting off the air to the machine's tool head (because most people do not know of it), but I do recommend turning off the bubbles (because most people cut steel).

You can film it cutting with your phone by holding it above the blue cabinet. This way, everyone remains safe and you still can see it cut, if desired.

We played with the settings a decent amount, but only enough to get a usable end result with aluminum. Settings need further tuning for less dross, for example.

If you find that your piece is warping while cutting, you have some basic choices:

• You can press space bar after each few cuts to allow more time for the piece to cool down
  • Do this during Z motions so you don't have to find the right line of G-code to restart from
  • This can greatly increase the time you spend cutting depending on the length and frequency of your breaks
• You can understand thermodynamics and select the places to cut on the piece intelligently such that heat has time to dissipate. After it cuts a few features, that area will be hot, but it can cut somewhere else that is cooler while the previous area cools.
• Use the water jet

If you are trying to cut, but it isn't able to arc properly, this is likely due to the consumables.

• Clean the nose cone (shield). I use the polishing wheel on the grinder in the weld shop. It works great, but be careful, please.
• Check the other two consumables. Are either in horrible condition? If so, replace them.
• Is your ground on your material? If so, you can try to move it closer, when possible.

If you get some message about an Ohm sensor error or Ohmic sensor fault something like that you need to understand that this is that sensor on the side of the toolhead. Basically, the machine touches its nose cone (shield) down to your material, which is grounded, to know that it has touched the material. This sensor thus needs good electrical contact to do so. Here are some troubleshooting steps in the order that I would go about them:

• Pull the ferrule off of the metal nub on the side of the tool head. Is it making contact with that nub? If not, take some needle nose pliers to give it some more friction on the metal nub.
• That metal piece has another end that is supposed to contact the nose cone (shield). Is it? After unscrewing the nose cone (shield) a lot, it can become loose and the connection disappears. If not, take some pliers to bend that piece of metal to touch the shield a little bit. It may help to unscrew the shield so you can overbend slightly. Too much though, and screwing it back is impossible.
• Is the nose cone (shield) very dirty? This can make the connection suffer. If it is, unscrew it and clean it. I use the polishing wheel on the grinder in the weld shop. It works great, but be careful, please.
• Follow the wire back up into the tool head. Confirm that it seems to be intact.
• One last thing is the tool head is actually held on by some magnets. You can sort of twist the whole thing off. This will expose a place where the sensor bridges between the tool head and the rest of the machine. This area may need some cleaning, for which I use a wire brush.

If you get some kind of a crash error, I have only found that this can be resolved by restarting and retrying.