Which plasma cutter should I get?  I cut nothing thicker than ¼” and mostly 1/8” steel. It’s non production work in a money limited home shop and I need one that is Mach 3 friendly. Thanks.

I am looking for one myself. I read up on it and found out that there are some with an electronic ignition system which can cause a lot of problems in the associated electronics. Hypertherm is the brand which seems to be the most desirable. I have not bought one yet, but tend to buy the smaller Hypertherm. There are a few ebay deals from a dealer which seem to be alright. And...... seriously consider a water bath to massively cut down on the fine metal dust that process generates and shortens and ruins everything in contact with it.
Lemo

I bought a Miller X-treme last week. Sweet! That's all I can say. It does not use the high frequency pilot starter. That makes it cooperate with CNC controllers/drives/motors/encoders. It cut's like butter. The only thing... I have to buy a bigger compressor. I only own a small pancake compressor for a nailgun. And after cutting a 4 ft width of 20 gauge sheet metal the poor thing is out of breath and the Miller switches off because of low pressure. Cut quality as far as I could observe in the time I played with it is spectacular. Now I will build a small outrigger for the taig mill so I can use that to cut some holes into sheet metal for my controller board. I plan to cut the holes for the printer port connector and a few other odd shaped holes with it. The quality of the edge is finish quality. No burr, no waste. I'm very happy with the purchase. I got the neat package including the blue case (very sturdy!) with the cable ties and three consumable kit's for less than 1200$ at Ebay including shipping and handling. The unit is SMALL and light. Little beast... looks tiny and chops anything up in sight. Now I am off to make that Taig attachment. I'll use the spindle relay to trigger the nozzle. Let's see what happens. Due to the surprisingly small amount of heat generated I'll encase the relatively small cutting area with an  acrylic top and a sheet metal pan. I'll attach a blower that will suck all that oxidized iron straight out of that box into my backyard... Hmmmmm... honey... the Tomatoes taste funny...
Lemo

After messing with it to see how it works I took it to good use on a 1/2Inch steel plate. The unit is rated for a maximum of 5/8... so 1/2 inch is well in the realm. After 10 inches the unit shut of because of overheating and the overheat light lit up. After one hour waiting (fan running in unit) we called it a day. This morning I plugged it in again, and the light was still on. The unit is shot during the first 10 minutes of use. Seems to be a piece of .......
Monday I'll call service and send it back in for repair... let's see how long that will take. Can;t use the garage now till it's back as my project cannot be moved till the cutting is done. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Lemo

One week has passed and no trace of the cutter. So.... weekend off 8(...
I hope it's not taking another week 8(((((.

It took another week and I still don;t have it back 8(

 

Brett

Unit came back last week. It must have been damaged in the first place when I had the problems. Right now it cut's like a champ and I am actually real happy with it. Kerf in 18 Gauge galvanized was about 1/16th which is nice and small. 1/2 Inch is a challenge with it and can only be described as 'chewing through'. But it works better than a angle grinder to cut it . 1/4 Inch and smaller cut's like butter, with tiny kerf and as fast as I can move the handle. I also pieced 1/8 steel without a problem. I drilled holes using the Miller X-treme.... Nice! Takes no time and creates less heat than drilling. So, right not I stand corrected. It's definitely not a piece of junk. Friday I added a air filter for the pressured air and that enhanced the cut quality significantly as no water get's to the nozzle. And with 90PSI required at the nozzle, there IS a lot of water arriving without that filter.
Lemo

Sorry to hear of all the problems and thanks for sharing the adventure with us. Glad it ended well. I hate it when my toys break.  Happy cutting. Ben

I'm still liking it a lot. There must have been a defect right when I got it the first time which prevented the internal fan to run. It only started to run when all was fried...
Now it's my little tool for ALL and ANY cutting... I made a little stand with some alignment jigs and that allows me together with my mig welder and a hand full of magnetic brackets to play 'sheet metal shop' without having a break or shear. Zip Zip... weld weld... little if any grind... prime/paint.... box is done. A lot of fun. I needed a bracket for my Bridgeport which I bought a couple of weeks ago. Now... that took about 15 minutes including cutting the large holes for the cables. Plasma cutting is like using a star wars laser sword... Nothing is safe....
Lemo