Black Friday Deal got me :)

i bought a Plasma cutter a while back and had plans to do a cnc table for this but  i wanted a machine torch rather than the hand torch that was included with the unit. I just happened to see a deal on Amazon that was pretty good so i jumped on it part of the problem with the hand torch was it being an odd ball and consumables being hard to find and rather expensive. but this deal solved that issue. $80 for the straight torch was hard to pass up looks like a 4' x 3' build in the works and i think i might try a down draft table. i was looking around and was curious if i could use an old blower from a furnace for this since i have one laying around. 

     

i thought the air was what worked the torch with a blow back start? i really don't know too much about how the magic works. i just knew high frequency starts are bad from what i learned before. i thought the air flow pushed the contact point so the torch fires with a blow back start torch?

i just went out and checked the hand torch that came with the machine and the electrode is spring loaded just like the new straight torch. so i think it is a blow back set up. they don't sell this one anymore and the new ones i think are all HF units. the new ones are not set up with the cnc options built in the units and are much cheaper than this unit. i seen a big price difference. i paid something like $550 for my unit.

The IPTM-60 is non-HF which implies blowback type.
The naked tip does not lend itself to ohmic sensing because the tip is shorted to the work lead clamp until it blows back, You can test this with a multimeter on tip to ground clamp. The solution is to use an external probe probably lowered with an air ram. QT plasmac supports offset probing for  this but more inventive folks lower a circular probe that encircles the probe tip.

i'm not sure how fancy this is going to get i am looking at cheap steppers and drives to do this cheap THC might be basic too i have to look into that part more while i am collecting parts. the whole THC is new to me so i have some learning to do for sure on that part. i made a breakaway torch holder a while back and it fits this torch so that's about as far as i am right now.

Rod  i did some digging and found out that this Machine has been done with THCAD before. the person that did this has some YouTube videos and i found this image on here. this is basically the exact same setup i was going to do minus the THCAD since i was not sure on that part; I watched the videos and in the video he said the THCAD-300 would have been a better choice with this machine. the only thing i noticed was that the THCAD-300 seems to be for only scratch start HF machines? this machine has a 1:1 ratio but has the blow back start so which would be better the THCAD-2 or the HTCAD-300 ?