Life of Plasma cutter electrodes.

[randyjaco]

+1 on the stand off. That was the most effective thing for me. I use it on the thin stuff too.

Randy

[macona]

A lot of machines manufactures say you can drag up to a certain point, about 35 amps or so. It still seems you get better life by not dragging at all.

[BigMike782]

I get great life from the consumables on my Powermax 1000 using the drag shield......for normal cutting I cannot imagine not using the drag shield.
Clean,dry air is a must for consumables to live.

[najnielkp]

i use a hypertherm powermax 1100 since 1998. been using it on a cnc table with machine torch. recently switched to rt80 retrofit torch. i filter with a truck
airdryer that dumps the extracted moisture between cutting files. one thing noticed the the new torch was much faster more square and cleaner. i use thermacut electrodes and swirl ring. hypertherm nozzles and shield. when i ran out of thermacut electrodes,bought the hypertherm electrodes and swirl ring. the hypertherm parts had a much shorter life before poor cut quality made them unusable. also electrodes would freeze in the swirl ring. amperage at tip was reading 10% higher. switched back to thermacut electrodes and swirl ring
and much longer life of electrode. just my opinion, but i think that the new duramax torch with its spring on the electrode is to eliminate the electrode freezing to the swirl ring.

[motorcyclemac]

I use a hypertherm on a Plasma Cam table. The electrode life is much better on the table than if used by hand. I can only conclude that the computer control during pierce and continuous cuts is far better at controlling cutting height. When running by hand it is a struggle to hold a consistent too height. The Software for the table does some z axis manipulations during the piercing operation. It raises the torch just a bit during the pierce as to not back wash molten material up into the tip. I'd say that if consumables have a short life, and you are running by hand, I'd make sure that you are using a standoff and straight edges anytime it is practical. The stability of the torch height along with cutting speed will really assist in life span of consumables.