When choosing your CNC plasma cutter provider, it can be quite complicated to figure out what you should consider – which is why in this article, we’ll be going over what you should be thinking about when purchasing one for your shop.
Job Volume
The first thing to consider is what kind of volume you have. If you have a job shop and you do quite a few different parts, you’re going to want a full size machine. It’s hard to beat a full size machine for versatility. In fact, if you have a big enough shop, you might even want two. That way you can have a second machine running something in the middle of a job while you work around on the first one.
If on the other hand, you’re a one-person shop or a small shop, you might consider a small machine. Often it isn’t big enough to handle big jobs, but it is big enough to be very useful for the little jobs that you wouldn’t even consider running on a manual machine.
Material Thickness
Next, you want to determine what kind of material thicknesses you’ll be working with. Do you have a lot of sheet metal? If so, you want to stay away from a machine that is limited to .2mm. If you’re only doing thin sheets, you can save yourself a lot of money by getting a machine that doesn’t support thicker materials.
On the other hand, if you work in thick steel quite a bit, then you definitely don’t want to have an upper limit of 50mm. Â Depending on what you do, you may need a machine that can go as thick as 200mm.
Material Density
Another factor to consider is material density. This refers to how much the material weighs. For example, aluminum is much lighter than steel. The density of the material will determine how much energy your machine needs to process the material at the same speed. That would be reflected in the amount of Amps your machine uses.
CNC or Manual
Now you should also consider how much of the work you want to do manually. If you’re buying a small machine, you’re probably not looking to do a lot of manual work. If you’re buying a big machine, you may end up doing more manual work on the big machines than you would have otherwise.
The reason for this is that a lot of the most useful things you can do with a CNC machine are boring things. Things like profile cutting, and pocketing, not to mention all the manual setups. If you find that you’re doing a lot of manual work on a big machine, and you don’t want to do that, you might be better off with a smaller machine that is less expensive to buy and easier to run.
How much manual work do you do
How much manual work do you do? The more manual work you do the more likely it is that a small machine will suit your needs. A small machine is easier to run, easier to maintain, easier to program, and cheaper to buy.
On the other hand, if you do a lot of manual work on your machine, you may want to consider a bigger machine. A bigger machine is much easier to move around than a small one. A bigger machine is also more useful for boring and other tasks that don’t require a lot of precision.
Looking to purchase a CNC plasma cutting table in Canada? Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you.