[Bauldrick]

Hello,

I'll try not to bore everyone with the details. Small company that I work for (mainly in the office CAD and general) have asked me to help out cutting steel profiles whilst a member is off long term.

The machine is extremely easy to use as I see it, It is built by Flamtek and is an oxy/propane cutting machine.

I have managed so far to go out and cut upto 75mm thick profiles (with no bangs and pops when piercing) - but I have done this completely as I see logical and not how our other cutter (1 year experiance) suggested.

I did it as such, allow the machine to travel to pierce point and (in the case of 75mm) sit on a low pre-heat nozzle close to the plate (1.5bar) for about 45 seconds - I then raise the zozzle to about 10-15mm start the machine on hi pre-heat (3.5bar) until I see it proper glow and spark, then I let it go.

At this point (I think) cutting pressure (7bar) kicks in and the machine takes over and does this - It 'pierce raises' which I set to .4 (inch I guess) 'pierce holds' for 1 (second I guess) at that point and then 'pierce ramps' for 1.25 (not sure if this is ameasurement of time or distance!!). Once I hace cleared the lead I lower nozzle to what I reckon to be a good enough height - blue cone about 5mm off plate?

Questions I would like answered if possible as I know absolutely nothing in this field: -

1. Does 'pierce ramp' suggest that the initially pierce probably want pierce all the way through and in order for molten metal to go somewhere the head slowly moves up lead in in order for it to spray out back?
2. Does that pierce ramp stay at the same pressure as initial pierce or slowly increase?
3. Is the heating on low pressure needed? (I see other cutter just go straight to hi pre-heat and pierce after 15-20 seconds - it's like being at a firing range with a firework display thrown in!?!

I would really appreciate some views, links even to provide me with some really good knowledge to take back and educate myself (possibly others) - for example we use harris nozzles and go by this chart :

http://www.harrisproductsgroup.com.a...-tip-chart.pdf

Is there any other charts or the like that may show length of time needed to 'pre-heat'

Thank you for your time

[Bauldrick]

Shouldn't reply to my own post, but I dug around in another thread here and found a reference to a link that was dead about info for oxy/propane that I have found very useful.

So I'm going to put it up here for my own benefit aswell as anyone else that may find it of help... ESAB Oxy/Fuel Cutting Quality

[ATTACH=CONFIG]ESAB Oxy/Fuel Cutting Quality[/ATTACH]