If anyone has any idea what the circled electrical part is, I'd love to know. There are two metal bars sticking up, separated by about 1/16", and each bar has a circular copper piece near the end. It appears to be some sort of contact, but I've never seen one before...
That part is a spark gap and has something to do with arc starting, look at http://www.gianttechplasmacutter.com/page/page/5410050.htm. Which symptoms your plasma cutter had when it failed? My cutter triggers overcurrent protection on every time I try to start cutting, no arc at all and cooling fan doesn't start.
ReplyDeleteEverything worked properly on my plasma cutter, except there was no power at the tip.
ReplyDeleteLuke, I realize that this is an old post but you may get this anser , better late than never..The circled part is a set of high frequence points for the unit and if I'm not mistaken they should be gapped at about 37 -40 thou.
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ReplyDeleteThe Metal tabs with the small contacts is a spark gap. This device is used to generate the hf spark via a winding on the output choke/txformer to ionize the gas in the torch head.
ReplyDeleteWhen it is working it will ionize the air and produce ozone which has a distinctive smell if you are curious. you will hear it buzz if it is working
Correct, the distance of the spark gap is important, some have small metal spherical beads on the end, usually the more expensive ones like hypatherm, these are tungsten with a bit of rare earth like lanthium to stabalise the flow of electrons like a tig electrode, cheaper ones just bare wire, apparently changing them improves the cutter a lot but i dont know where to get them, must be available somewhere
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ReplyDeleteSpark gap
ReplyDeleteThe contacts are for when the trigger is pushed and the hf arc does not reach the work piece instead it jumps the contacts.. hence by adjusting the gap you can increase the distance the arc will jump to the work but do not make it too big
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