Rejoining Plasma Spider

[jimcolt]

Jim Colt here.......been a few years since I spent some time on the Plasma Spider forum! For those that do not know me, here is my mini resume!

- Lived in New Hampshire and worked for Hypertherm for 41 years in a variety of capacities.
- Retired from Hypertherm about 3 years ago and packed up and moved to North Carolina.
- Have been involved with virtually every Hypertherm plasma cutting application from 1000 amp water injected plasma for cutting over 6' stainless, to being on the design teams for the first High Definition plasma systems as well as the first low powered air plasma systems (now the Powermax units.
- I have worked with plasma doing repairs in nuclear plants, in shipyards helping to improve cut quality on the latest Navy vessels, as well as working with many hands on applications for virtually anything that can be done with a plasma cutter, whether hand held, robotic, cnc mechanized application. - I have owned 8 different cnc cutting machines in my home shop......a shop that is generally just used for my own needs (20 acre NC Horse farm). Currently I have a Maverick CNC machine (with Flashcut) and a PlasmaCam machine.

-I am spend a few hours each week on a number of other forums, mostly facebook based. I'll get involved with discussions where I feel I can help answer questions and improve performance of cutting operations. I have Hypertherm Power max units in my shop (45xp, 65 and 85) and soon will be doing some of my own test cutting with the cartridge adapters, and possibly with upgrade to a SYNC system......as one of the last projects of my years at Hypertherm involved me as a member in the early stages of the SYNC systems development team. Jim Colt

[ROKCRLER]

Welcome back Jim!

oh and.... i need one of your extra hand torches for a 45xp

[sonbakler]

Welcome back Jim. I surely have missed your flow of advice from here since you left. Glad to see you back

[SegoMan DeSigns]

Jim,

Glad to have you back, your wisdom has saved me on many occasions

I would hate to think where this industry would be without your input

Now as for my opinions on the SYNC system, let's just agree to disagree over the high price consumables..

Steve

[djreiswig]

Welcome back Jim.
As for the SYNC, I'm with Steve.

[adbuch]

Welcome back Jim! I have been following you since you were a moderator at the Plasmacam Owner's Community Forum where I joined about 7 years ago. I see your posts occasionally at one of the Plasmacam facebook groups. I will look forward to your renewed participation here.

Thanks,
David

[Jason@bc]

Welcome back Jim, I have read a lot of your advice on cutting performance etc...

[Joe Jones]

Welcome back to the madness, Jim!

Joe

[abmetal]

Great to see you're back!

Allen

[TJS]

Welcome back Jim.
T.J.

[tinspark]

Jim Colt here.......

Learned a lot from the many videos and posts on various forums that you produced. I think I went with the gotorch because of one of your posts about the success that you had with PlasmaCam products. And have been happy with the software upgrades that it needed to make it work optimally as you described. and loved the machine so much that I expanded it to a 4x4 a few years back. I usually stop and read your stuff when I find it..
Glad you will be more active here..

Also would love to hear some back stories on the sync system.
I figured that Hypertherm was losing Millions $$, and that part of its inception was a means of stopping the Chinese consumable knockoff$?

[jimcolt]

The idea of the SYNC cartridge based consumables goes back decades actually. The large industrial (XPR plasma systems) machines have a much more complicated "stack of consumables....necessary for high definition class cutting on a lot of different materials. While there currently are no cartridge consumables for these industrial plasmas......I expect that there will be eventually. The idea of cartridge consumables as well as for the more complex gas delivery systems is not so Hypertherm can protect their intellectual property (patented processes, patented consumables, etc.), rather the main idea is to simplify the process and make plasma cutting on different thicknesses and materials more consistent, by eliminating the operator from having to be an expert with the choice of many different torch parts as well as many settings that will optimize the cutting process. In reality, when used as designed the cartridge consumables have a higher price at the time of purchase, but produce a lower cost per foot (based on better cut quality, less secondary work, longer consumable life as compared to stack consumables). A lower cost per foot of cut and more consistent cutting is what makes busier shops more successfull.......but often goes un-noticed in smaller operations. Jim Colt

[adbuch]

Thanks for that great explanation Jim!

David

[rick_b]

Welcome back Jim, I have followed you for a long time and you have always been a wealth of information.

As for the SYNC system, and as a lot of people on here know, I am far from a fan of it or Hypertherm at the moment.

[East German]

I'm curious about what's to come!?

Peter

[Joe Jones]

I'm curious about what's to come!?

Peter

Plasma will always have its place, but many people are moving to lasers, as the price comes down and the power increases.

Joe

[adbuch]

I'm curious about what's to come!?

Peter

Peter - I haven't seen you around in a while. Welcome back to you as well.

David

[East German]

I'm curious about what's to come!?

Peter

Peter - I haven't seen you around in a while. Welcome back to you as well.

David

David
Thanks, I read regularly.

My machine runs almost every day and other restorations take their time.

Best regards from
Peter

[acourtjester]

Now that is real nice Peter, true labor of love.

[Joe Jones]

I really admire people who have the patience to do something like that. It is a labor of love, because few people would pay for all of the WORK that went into restoring a vehicle like this.

Joe

[East German]

I really admire people who have the patience to do something like that. It is a labor of love, because few people would pay for all of the WORK that went into restoring a vehicle like this.

Joe

I bought the machine built in 1960 in 1983 to drive to work. From 1988 it stood in the corner to shine again in its old glory.

thanks peter

[adbuch]

That is a great job Peter! What kind of motorcycle is that? I assume that it has an enclosed chain drive?
David

[East German]

Yes
Here is a Description:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MZ_125

[adbuch]

Thanks Peter! I don't speak German, but at least I can look at the pictures.

David

[Tautog13]

Thanks Peter! I don't speak German, but at least I can look at the pictures.

David

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MZ_Moto ... weiradwerk

David, scroll down to notable models:
MZ RT 125/3, 1959–1962