Finally purchased a plasma cutter.

[General Zod]

On the site Workbench Creations Everlast customer service was shown to be no better than the typical Chinese product sellers. All his back & forth emails were posted. Not good! There is a maker of plasma cutters in Italy that may be a safer bet at a higher price. Now if I could just find them again.

Mine is made in Italy. Made by Stel and imported by HTP America as the MicroCut 875sc. 55A @ 45% duty cycle. 45A @ 100% duty cycle. Soon I'll be receiving a special order 70A plasma from Stel, but it's only 400V/3-Φ. Will most likely be used in an up-coming CNC plasma table.

 

[brino]

You are correct, it makes perfect sense to invest in quality tools! This is my first plasma cutter and any trades person will probably do more cutting in a single day than I will in an entire year. I would love a Hypertherm but there is no way I could ever justify spending that much money on a plasma cutter (even a used one, I have look for a used one) so a cheap Chinese cutter is pretty much all that will ever be in the cards for me. I read through all of the Amazon negative reviews quite closely and most were complaining about not being able to get consumables. The torch is a standard Hypertherm S45 Chinese knock off and I ordered the consumables with the cutter. If the consumables don't work with the cutter I will send the entire package back. If the unit is DOA I will send the entire package back. That pretty much covers the negative reviews that I saw on Amazon. My biggest exposure is if it works for 6 months then dies... no return, no support and this is a very real possibility.

As far as CNC goes it is something that I would like to have the option to play around with some day. I am not going to go out and buy a high end CNC cutting table, I will build one out of spare bits and parts for the fun of it. I am not manufacturing parts, I am not selling parts I am not doing side jobs, this is not my profession, I don't need the most reliable plasma cutter or the highest quality cut available on the market. I understand your point of view from a person who depends on there tools for their lively hood... that is not me though. I am a software engineer by profession and doing low tech manual get my hands dirty and have a physical object to show for it at the end of the day type projects is what I do to relax. As soon as I start doing this for money it is a job which would completely ruin my hobby for me.

Extremely well put!

Brian

 

[Larry$]

As soon as I start doing this for money it is a job which would completely ruin my hobby for me.

Well put. If it weren't for cheap Chinese stuff, few of us could have the fun of playing with things normally beyond our means. The problem shows up when the cheap stuff doesn't outlast it's low price. Pays your $, takes your chances.

 

[alloy]

Did anyone see that amazon offers a 4 year warranty for $27 on yes cutter?

I've did a little checking and is seems the reviews on the warranty are really bad. I saw a Lotos at home depot for around the same money and they also have a warranty, but same story, bad reviews on the warranty.

I'm kind of inclined to go with the Lotos. They have been around awhile.

I hope to have a project coming up in march. I'm bidding on a Cadillac escalade total (rollover) and it's got the LS3 L99 engine in it. I want for my 55 chevy build. All aluminum block and heads, factory 403 hp, and a 10 speed trans. The engine I'm assuming was running when it rolled. I'll have to cut the engine out, and a plasma cutter would be perfect for this.

​

 

[MikeInOr]

Did anyone see that amazon offers a 4 year warranty for $27 on yes cutter?

I've did a little checking and is seems the reviews on the warranty are really bad. I saw a Lotos at home depot for around the same money and they also have a warranty, but same story, bad reviews on the warranty.

I'm kind of inclined to go with the Lotos. They have been around awhile.

I hope to have a project coming up in march. I'm bidding on a Cadillac escalade total (rollover) and it's got the LS3 L99 engine in it. I want for my 55 chevy build. All aluminum block and heads, factory 403 hp, and a 10 speed trans. The engine I'm assuming was running when it rolled. I'll have to cut the engine out, and a plasma cutter would be perfect for this.

​

When I put the Yeswelder cutter into my cart the warranty was $72, not backed by Amazon and had really bad reviews. I considered it but didn't buy it.

I have had a Lotos cutter in my Amazon watch cart for a couple years now along with Everlast and Powerweld. All of these brands appear to have a very good track record from what I have seen. They all appear to be safer purchases than the Yeswelder.

The last time I looked at doing an engine swap with a modern engine (many years ago) the engine and transmission were dependant on the CPU and the CPU won't function without a proper transponder signal from the original key. There were also various sensors through out the vehicle that had to be active for the CPU to function properly. There weren't any practical substitutions for the variable valve timing control and the transmission controller at that time. Is this still the case? The wiring and the CPU and sensors scared me off and I went a different direction. (A 392 out of a Bluebird school bus is a direct bolt in swap for a 345 in an International Scout and cost the same to rebuild as the 345).

 

[alloy]

I've got an 08 LS L92 out of an escalade engine in my nova. I sent my computer off and they programed out vats (anti theft) removed the feedback for the catalytic converters, removed the speed limiter, changed the programming to work with a manual trans, did a few performance mods that are supposed to gain about 30hp, and a host of other things so it will run stand alone. I did have to buy a special engine harness in addition to a new body harness. About $1500 in wiring.

It's going to be the end of april until I know if I won the bid on the rollover, so I'm hoping you get your cutter and can do a review on it and that will help me decide which one to buy.

Edit: I should mention I have an everlast tig welder. Bought it awhile back and was trying to learn to use it then had a stroke. From what little I have used it I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Larry$]

Mine is made in Italy

Thank you, Looks like it will cost over $1K. About what I had expected.

 

[General Zod]

Thank you, Looks like it will cost over $1K. About what I had expected.

Oh yea, but it is worth every penny IMO. Top quality unit.

 

[alloy]

I've been doing some more looking at plasma cutters and found the lotos ltp500d on ebay for $379 and free shipping. It has a:

WARRANTY​

30 days refund and a 3-YEARS Limited Warranty: include 1 Year NEW Replacement Warranty (Contiguous US only)​

And there is a square trade 2 year warranty offer for $35. I'd include a link to it but the link is half a page long.

I have dealt with square trade before and they are a good company. I have them fix or replace my laptop computers before. They offer a local repair option, and one where you send the item in. I'm not sure if they wound have you send the plasma cutter in, probably just replace it.

I'm about ready to pull the trigger on this before the chip shortage affect availability.

 

[MikeInOr]

The Yeswelder CUT-65DS came in last Wednesday. I only had a chance to set it up on Friday and make a couple of test cuts. The test cuts went well.

Today I had a chance to spend some time in the shop and work on the mobile base I have been building.


I needed some brackets to weld onto the mobile base that I could bolt the casters onto. I bought a 14" piece of 4" x 4" x 1/8" tubing. I cut the tubing in half so I had two 7" pieces of tubing. Then I made the cut above with the plasma cutter cutting the two pieces into 4 pieces but tapered from 3" at one of the cut to 1" at the other end of the cut yielding the 4 brackets that I needed. With the help of a straight edge clamped on to the tubing almost all the cuts went perfect. The second cut I played around with the pressure and current a bit and the arc started going out after about an inch of cut. After a few more minutes messing around I decided to attach the ground clamp to the piece and the rest of that cut and all the other cuts went very nicely.

I did have a bit of slag on the cuts but I am new to this and haven't figured out the current and pressure settings yet. I made a test cut in a 1/2" plate which also went very nicely. All of the cuts that I made today were on 110v with a max of 45amps. The 110v/220v plug adapter they supplied does not fit my 220v shop plugs. I will have to make my own adapter.

As far as negatives:
The manual is for all practical purposes non-existent.
There is a flow gauge that came with the cutter which took me a while to figure out how to use it. At first I thought it was supposed to slip onto the drain port of the supplied filter / water separator. Then I figured out that you put the nozzle of the torch under the flow meter and adjust the pressure until the ball in the meter rises to the indicated marks on the flow meter.
The pressure adjustment and the pressure gauge mount to the back of the unit instead of being integrated into the unit like some of the nicer cutters. The pressure gauge points backwards so you have to turn the unit around or stretch your neck around the back of the unit to read the pressure gauge. I guess if you use the flow meter pressed against the torch nozzle you don't really have to look at the pressure gauge and the pressure regulator can be manipulated easily enough by reaching over the top of the unit.

Summary:
I am VERY happy with this cutter. It isn't a top of the line Hypertherm but it should easily handle anything that I will ever want to do with it including experiment with a DIY CNC plasma cutter some day. I doubt I will ever tax the full 65 amps the unit is capable of but it is nice to know it is there if I need it. That said there is nothing to confirm that it will put out 65 amps but there is no guarantees on the actual output any plasma cutter with the best hope that the big names are more honest than the cheap ones. I do have some gouging tips on order that I look forwards to trying to cut a few welds with. The replacement consumables haven't arrived yet so I can't confirm they will work. I will post when the arrive and I give them a try.

I have no regrets buying this cutter (so far). Everyone needs to make there own choices and I am no plasma cutter expert so I will not go so far as to recommend the cutter BUT I have found nothing that would make me recommend staying away from this cutter.

Cheers!


Edit: The S45 consumables came in today. They work fine. I do not understand the two Amazon reviews that say there are no consumables available for this plasma cutter. Maybe the description did not previously spell out that the torch was a Chinese clone of a S45 Hypertherm torch?