What to do with your used Hypertherm products
Elimination and reduction of waste is the foundation of a good approach to end-of-life equipment management.
If you have a Hypertherm power system that you are done using, we encourage you to determine the most sustainable path for it. At Hypertherm, we design our products to last a long time. This is the first step in eliminating waste. We also design our products to be as lightweight and to use as few components as possible. All of this eliminates material at the source, before it can even become waste.
Below are options for your Hypertherm products listed from best to worst for the environment.
Reduce
Reducing waste is even better than reuse or recycling. Please consider whether you really need to get rid of your system, or whether you might extend its life through:
- Repairs or upgrades – can be lower cost for you, and less resource intensive. You could upgrade the torch to get the increased performance you need, repair just the components that are not functioning, or upgrade the software to take advantage of Hypertherm’s automation technology.
- Preventive maintenance will help your system last longer. Take a class from Hypertherm Cutting Institute and learn about ways to use your existing equipment more effectively.
Reuse
REUSE ALL
After an extremely long life with you, the next best thing for your system is to serve its highest and best use, as cutting equipment, with someone else. Can you resell it? Could you give it away? If it is not serving your needs, maybe it could serve someone else.
REUSE PARTS
Another option is to save the functioning components that you might put to use again as spare parts for repairing other equipment.
Recycle
The final option is to scrap your system. The good news is that your system is highly recyclable and it should be low cost, free, or will bring in revenue, to recycle it. Follow these steps to scrap your system or watch videos below for instructions.
- Unplug, de-energize, and let it sit for 10 minutes so that capacitors discharge. Read the Safety and Compliance manual. Use safety glasses and gloves. Remove cover.
Remove the printed circuit boards. These should be sent to an R2 or Rios certified e-waste recycler. If sent to these experts, all components will be 100% recycled.- Search for e-waste facilities by zip code – While all of these are not certified, they will recycle your e-waste.
For CNCs, send the entire unit to an R2 Rios Certified e-waste recycler. Do not attempt to remove the CCFL lamps from the screen. However the screen is easy to remove in its entirety and can be reused as a monitor, plug and play. The circuit boards and chips are valuable enough that you should not have to pay to dispose of them. If you must send the system to your regular scrap vendor where it will end up shredded, please remove the screen and lithium battery first.
OPTION 1Disassemble your system to get the highest scrap values. No special tools are needed. Before you spend the time, check to see if a local e-waste recycler will pay you more for separated materials or check to see if your facility already has separate collection for aluminum or copper. Full tear down
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OPTION 2This is the easiest path. You can put the whole system, without the e-waste components such as printed circuit boards, into your mixed metal scrap bin. Please point out to your scrap vendor that there are valuable components within the system, such as a pure aluminum heatsink, lots of copper on the transformer, mixed copper and aluminum in the cold plate (radiator), and potentially reusable fans, motors, pumps, or air regulators. Depending on your vendor contract, the least you will get is $0.10/lb. for the system, or approximately $70 for an HPR® or MAXPRO and $5 for a light industrial or Powermax system. |
Disassembly videos
Scroll through the videos below of various stages of the MaxPro® and the EDGE® Pro CNC being disassembled. Video titles will appear when video is clicked.
