Monthly cleaning and inspection of your plasma cutter
We've covered daily and weekly tips for your plasma cutter. Now it's time to move on to monthly tips. There are five or six things, depending on the system you have, that you should do once a month. Essentially, you'll want to clean the inside of your power supply, inspect the electrical components, and check your ground and table-to-workpiece connections.
1. Clean your power supply. Completely turn off your plasma cutter then remove the top and side panels. Gently blow out or vacuum any metal dust and other debris that you see; carefully remove dust from your circuit boards.
2. Conduct a thorough coolant flow test. Although you should check your coolant flow once a week, you’ll want to conduct a more thorough test once a month. We actually advise that a trained service technician or other specially trained resource do the check. At the same time, you’ll want to inspect connection points like where the hose connects to the ignition console, the torch body, and the power supply.
3. Check your main contractor. If you see excessive pitting or a blackened, rough surface, then you'll want to replace it.
4. Inspect pilot arc relay. This task is only for HyPerformance HPRXD Plasma systems. Remove the cover and inspect the contacts for excessive pitting. If you see a lot of putting, we recommend that you replace the entire relay.
5. Inspect gas line connections. Simply spray your lines with soapy water. If you see bubbles, tighten or replace.
6. Inspect ground and work lead connections. Verify that all plasma cutter components are individually grounded to a driven earth ground and that your work lead connection—especially the connection at your cutting table—is clean and tight. You don't want any paint, oil, or dirt on the connection as you need a clean metal-to-metal contact.
The above tasks are a little more involved than the daily and weekly tasks, but on the bright side, you only need to do them once a month!