Can a stick welder be used as a plasma torch?

admin

When I was purchasing the Miller the owner showed me a cool attachment called a "weld eraser".  It looked like a stick welder but bigger and had an air line in it.  He said that you put a carbon rod in it and strike an arc.  Then press a level that shoots two jets of air at the arc.  The arc from the carbon rod melts the metal and the air jets blow away the molten metal.  This looks to me to have all the basic components of a plasma cutter.  Can you make a plasma cutter out of a stick/Tig welder with a few modifications?  I might buy it from him and mess with it.  Take a high strength  metal tube put a graphite tip on it and have the jet aimed directly down right at the arc.  Or maybe it makes more sense to get a plasma torch and just play with that.Thanks,Adam
Reply:The "weld eraser" is an air-arc or carbon gouging torch.A useful tool, lacks the finesse and precision of plasma cutting, has brutal metal removing capability. When in use, only molten metal in the immediate arc is blown away, adjacent areas seem to be cooled by the air stream. There is little "carrying" of  the cut. Search should bring up lots of posts on air-arc or carbon gouging here.Plasma power source has electrical characteristics that create a "plasma" state in the arc, not within  the range of a welder power source.Modifications? That's another story. We would sure love to see pics of any experiment.
Reply:that should'nt be too hard to make, just use lots of duct tape
Reply:Oh you should try arc gouging if you havn't yet. Pretty loud operation. It's a lot of fun, just make sure the flammables are put up. Last stuff I arc gouged was burner nozzles in a coal firepower plant. Cuts through thick material efforteously.
Reply:Sounds cool maybe I'll try it.  Guy offered me the gouger and carbon rods for $25.  Didn't take it becasue I figured it would never be used.  But if it's a hoot to try once why not.  Cheeper than taking my best girl to a movie and dinner and maybe more fun!Sooooooo..  What do you guys think would happen if I took a Plasma torch and just hooked it up?  I imagine it would work more like a regular oxy acet cuting torch than a true plasma torch.  Heat the metal and then blow/burn it with an oxygen/air jet.  But may not work as well since air is only 20% ox.  Who would know the science of creating the plasma well?  I should be able to follow them a bit since my profession is mech engineering and I work for an Ion Implant company.  Our machine starts it's process by creating a plasma cloud and then extracting it with high voltage.  I could ask around here but I doubt anybody will know the subtlties of it for a Plasma torch application.  There all geeky scientists i.e. practical application is not their speciality.  I could butter them up by asking in Klingon for them to research it a bit. "Resistance is futile"
Reply:Originally Posted by adamb113  ...But if it's a hoot to try once why not.  Cheeper than taking my best girl to a movie and dinner and maybe more fun!...Sooooooo..  What do you guys think would happen if I took a Plasma torch and just hooked it up?  I imagine it would work more like a regular oxy acet cuting torch...   Heat the metal and then blow/burn it with an oxygen/air jet.
Reply:On the first part let me clarify.  My best girl is my wife.  We have been together forever so our conversations usually consist of me defending how a grown man can be so inept as to not be able to pick up his underwear off the floor.  By movie I mean a two hour session of some woman going through some stupid emotional journey on a 20ft screen.  This is the case because I lost the underwear argument and she got to pick the film.  So melting metal with an electric arc and shaving it with an air jet is a hoot by comparison.  The other good thing is that my gear is in the barn.  So when I'm done I can put a strobe light on so it looks like I'm still welding, unsafe to enter. and sneak out to the strip club by the airport.I know I'm pushing it here but I'm a total basement bomber by nature and I love hypothesesining about this kinda thing.  I have ended up at the end of some very weird/cool avenues this way.  You can check the police/fire dept logs in my town to see.  My favorite is they ended up on my street responding to a call of "An explosion followed by a column of flame"  Long story short, nobody got hurt, and I didn't have to go to jail. But I am also clearly risking being reprimanded again for bothering pro welders with novice (i.e. stupid) questions.  But I'm a gambling man so here it goes.Don't I have a high frequency start on my system for Tig?  Basically I guess what I need to find out is exactly what is going on electrically with a plasma cutter.  I still can't believe nobody has doen this.On a side note I interviewed an engineer today whose entire pHD is around laser welding an injected metal powder.  The equipemnt he uses and does research with can build up material to any shape from a computer program. The Metal powder jet is injected right in to the molten pool created by the laser.  Really cool.  When do you think Harbor Freight will carry one of those?
Reply:Originally Posted by adamb113 So when I'm done I can put a strobe light on so it looks like I'm still welding, unsafe to enter. and sneak out to the strip club by the airport.
Reply:Aha!  That was what I was looking for.  Thanks!  So it's a power supply difference that makes the conversion not possible.
Reply:How much do you guys derate Aluminum wire compared to Copper wire?  I have #6 Aluminum wire running to my barn.  This is good for 50amps in  the guides but I imagine they are assuming it's copper.  Does this have to be scaled down for Aluminum?Just asking becasue I really don't want the following scenario to play out......A this is Dispatch.  We have another fire at Adam's house.  Aparently it's underground.  Should we call ahead and have his wife make cookies for us again.  Maye one of you should stop by a shop and get them a gift for the new baby.  So if I put a big transformer outside my welder to step the voltage up and get a plasma torch .... ah who am I kidding I'll just end up killing myself in a way that will have the coroner scratching their heads for a while.  I'll just save my pennies and buy a plasma cutter like normal people do.