So you're welding on your rig and now
you need to make some custom brackets to mount those new shocks, or
bumpers. Cutting your own out of steel is very easy to do if
you have the right equipment, a plasma cutter is a great tool for
this. I fire up a Miller Spectrum 2050 plasma cutter and have at some
mild steel. It cuts it like butter. Before I get into
the review, here is some information on plasma cutting in
general.
Most everyone knows of the three
most common states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. The
little talked about forth state of matter is Plasma. To give
an example, water in its natural state is in liquid form, when
frozen (ice) it's in the solid state, boil water (steam) and you
have the gas state. Super heat it and you have Plasma.
Without getting into the super technical terms, plasma cutting was
discovered by Union Carbide in the 1950's while they were
experimenting with TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas, a.k.a. Heliarc)
welding. Plasma cutting started seeing commercial use for the
first time in the 1960's. It originally was very expensive
and you saw little or no home usage. After years of
refinement and technological advancement the price has dropped
dramatically and units are now much more affordable and they are
showing up more and more in small shops and home hobby shops at a
record rate.
Plasma cutters will cut any
metal that will conduct electricity. Steel, stainless steel,
aluminum, titanium, copper, brass etc. With the right contact
tip and electrode, you can not only cut, but plasma gouge as
well. This means you can gouge out a weld or a rivet with
little or no (depending on your skill) damage to the surrounding
parts. This is an awesome time saver when having to remove
parts that are hard to get at with a hand or air grinder.
Cutting mild steel (as stated above) is like a hot knife through
butter. Plasma has several advantages over Oxy/Acetylene,
there are no flammable gas's involved in the cutting process, it is
a cleaner cut with less or no dross (again depending on your skill
and the machine settings). It will cut any metal that
conducts electricity (oxy/acetylene only cuts steel). There
is no pre-heating to red hot before you can cut, and the heated
zone is more localized for less impact on the surrounding
metal.
Now you ask, so what
does the plasma cutter require to cut? Two key things:
Electricity and good, clean dry compressed air. The air can
be supplied from an air compressor or from high pressure compressed
air tanks. There are also some plasma cutters that come with
their own on board air compressor so all you have to do is plug it
in (these will only cut 1/4" thick and thinner
material). There are some consumables involved, the most
common ones are electrodes and the nozzle. These are made of
closely machined copper and due to the high heat the plasma process
works at, they get worn down (actually kind of a melted pit) and
have to be replaced every so often.
Now that I have given you a little history and information on
how plasma cutters work, Let's take a look at the Spectrum
2050 plasma cutter. The unit itself is pretty compact
and the controls are very user friendly and easy to
understand. The Spectrum 2050 comes from the
factory with an instruction manual (two actually, one for the unit
and one for the torch), power wire (no plug) twenty foot ground
wire and clamp, extra consumables, and a torch (depending on
what you choose, either a 25 or 50 foot ICE 55 either hand
held or machine torch ***you can also get it without a
torch***). I also got the optional no. 30 economy cart and
torch wrap for the 2050 (part number 195 443) . All together,
this makes for a nice unit that is easy to work with. Here
are a couple of pictures of the 2050, what it comes with and the
cart.
Spectrum 2050 , ICE 55C torch, and ground right out
of the box
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Instructions (optional video), and extra
consumables
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ICE 55C torch head and ground clamp
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What you see when you open optional cart box
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Optional cart laid out and ready to be built
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Spectrum 2050 installed on cart with torch
attached
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The 2050 I got came with a 25 foot Ice 55C hand
held torch, 20 foot ground cable with clamp. Some extra
consumables, instruction manual, and an instructional video.
After reading the instruction manual, I watched the video (this was
very informative and gives some very useful tips). The power
wire supplied with the unit does not have a plug, so I installed a
3 prong plug that fit my receptacle. The unit has Miller's
exclusive Auto-Line power input. This allows any power input
from 208 to 575 volts, as well as single or three phase power
without having to change any jumper wires or links. For air
hookup, the rear of the unit has a brass fitting threaded in 1/4
NPT (national pipe thread), this goes to an internal air filter/
regulator, the filter will also drain water through a small clear
tube that is routed out the bottom of the unit.
Both ends of the ICE 55C torch
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Ground (or work) clamp and cable
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3 prong power plug I installed
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Power switch and air input
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The 2050's controls are on the front with the
exception of the power switch, it's on the rear of the unit.
The front controls are (from left to right) the air pressure gauge,
air pressure regulator control knob, and the amp output knob.
Right under these (from left to right) are the torch input plug,
pilot arc mode switch, and the status/trouble shooting
lights. These lights are: indicate power, ready, pressure,
cup, and temperature. More on these later. The 2050 is
output adjustable from 20 to 55 amps. With the proper power
source and at least 6.0 CFM (cubic feet a minute) of air at 70 psi
(pounds per square inch) the 2050's cutting ratings are as
follows: Rated 7/8" (this means that it will cut 10" a minute
at this thickness), Quality 1" (this means it will still make a
good quality cut but at a slower speed), and finally Sever 1 1/4"
(this is the maximum thickness of metal it will cut under ideal
conditions). Also depending on the input power the duty cycle
is either 50 or 60% (duty cycle means the amount of time you can
cut in a 10 minute period. 50% equals 5 minutes)
**NOTE: all three of these ratings are with un-shielded
consumables).Full Spectrum 2050 spec sheet
Front control panel
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ICE 55C torch quick connect
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Pilot are mode switch
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Status/Trouble shooting lights
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Once you have read the instructions, and the air
and power are hooked up, you are almost ready to go.
The next thing you need to do is look at your safety
equipment. For me this consists of some mig or tig welding
gloves (these are thinner than regular welding gloves and give you
more feel for what you are doing) if I do not have on a welding
jacket, a pair of Kevlar welding sleeves are great. You don't
need a super dark welding helmet for cutting. A shade 5 or 6
pair of safety glasses and a grinding shield work just fine.
Once these are on, it's time to make some adjustments to the
2050. You need to turn the unit's power on, then turn the
output control knob all the way counter clockwise to the Gas/Air
set setting. This will let air flow out of the torch without
activating the cutting power. Now that air is flowing, check
the pressure gauge, you want to adjust the regulator until it shows
about 70 psi while the air is flowing.
Once this is set you
can turn the output control to the desired setting. Now you
are ready to cut. All you need to do is make sure the metal
you are cutting is grounded good to the work clamp. Set your
amperage on the output control and, depending on which shield you
have on the torch, you can drag cut by placing the drag cutting
shield directly onto the metal you are cutting so that the tip is
right close to the edge (if you are using the extended tip and
shield), or (using the regular tip and shield) you need to keep the
tip about 1/8" above the metal. If you make contact with the
metal with any of the tips other than the drag cutting shield you
can cause damage and/or premature wear of the tip and
electrode. Once the plasma flow starts move the torch in a
nice smooth motion. You are looking for the sparks to blow
out the bottom of the metal your cutting.
If it's blowing out
around you or too the side, one of two things are normally
happening. You are either moving the torch too fast, or you
need to up the amps on the output control. There is
also an optional Gouging tip and shield, this lets you plasma grind
so to speak. You can remove welds, rivets and make divots in
metal with this. Gouging is very LOUD, wear some hearing
protection while gouging.
Front panel controls set at 70 psi and 45 amps.
Proper status lights are lit up green
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Kevlar arm guards, mig welding gloves, shade 5 safety
glasses and a clear safety shield
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Drag shield and normal tip
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Normal shield and normal tip
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Normal shield and extended tip
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Gouging shield and gouging tip
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Sparks show proper cutting
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Included extra consumables
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Now let's talk about some of the details about the
Spectrum 2050, the unit weighs about 75 lbs and comes
with two very sturdy handles on the top of the case for easy
transportability. The ICE 55C Torch is removable from the
2050 via a quick connect and threaded collar arrangement, it also
has a built in safety lever in the trigger. The ground clamp
has two large round multi-toothed copper contact disks, which are
joined together with a thick woven copper strap inside the clamp
itself. On the left side of the case is a consumables storage
bin, on the door of this storage bin is a breakdown of the ICE 55 C
gun with all the part numbers of the consumables for the
torch.
Let's not forget another great feature, it's built
right here in the U.S.A., Appleton, Wisconsin to be exact and
Miller has been around for 75 years so you know they back what they
sell.
Spring loaded carry handles
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Torch quick disconnect
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Safety lever on ICE 55c torch
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Nice copper contacts
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Consumable storage built in
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Full breakdown of torch parts
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I have already written about the Miller exclusive
Auto-Line input voltage technology. Some other exclusive
features to the Miller Spectrum plasma cutters are Wind Tunnel Technology (Internal air flow
that protects electrical components and PC boards from dirt, dust,
debris... greatly improving reliability.) Blow Back Torch Design (The plasma arc is
created by pulling an electrical arc between an electrode and tip.
This process eliminates high frequency by forcing an electrical arc
between the two pieces.) Fan On
Demand (Internal power source cooling system that
only works when needed, keeping internal components cleaner.)
Pilot Arc Switch (The
expanded metal mode allows operator to cut grates, chain link
fence, and other perforated metals without retriggering the
gun.) Post Flow Cooling
Circuit
(Protection to extend
the life of consumables and the welding torch is enhanced by our
post flow circuit that provides shielding gas after you release the
trigger.)
One other
great feature is the Miller True Blue Warranty! The ICE 55C torch has
a one year warranty, the rest of the unit has a three year
warranty. Miler has over 800 authorized service centers that
can perform warranty repair work, should you ever need
it.
Miller has one heck of a
fine tool in the Spectrum 2050 plasma cutter.
It's easy to operate, cuts any metal that conducts electricity
and will cut mild steel all the way up to 1" thick with a quality
smooth cut. Matter of fact, the cut's smoothness is directly
proportional to the operators smoothness while moving the
torch. Translated this means it will cut smoother than I
can.
It will make a very clean cut with little or no dross
(the molten crud that clings to the edges of the cut where the
plasma blows through). What dross there is left can easily be
removed by tapping the edge of it with a hammer (while wearing
safety goggles of course).
Cut in 1/4" thick steel angle
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Cut in 1/2" thick steel plate
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Dross removal with a hammer
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Cut in 1" thick steel plate!
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Cut in 1/4" thick aluminum plate, it's a little more
messy
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Cut in stacked 1/4" steel and aluminum
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If you're in the market for a plasma cutter, you
won't go wrong with the Spectrum2050. If this is too much or too little plasma
cutter for you, Miller has quite a few other plasma cutters to
offer. Take a look at what they have, you won't be
sorry.
Any questions or comments regarding
this article, please feel free to email me.
Thanks Glenn
Any questions
or comments on this product please email Miller at the link
below.
Miller Electric Manufacturing Co.
1635 W. Spencer St.
P.O. Box 1079
Appleton, WI 54912-1079 Phone: 920-734-9821 E-mail:Click here to E-mail us
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