Details on Plasma Cutting

Plas­ma cut­ting is an emerg­ing field due to enhanced robot­ic tech­nol­o­gy. Plas­ma cut­ting evolved from plas­ma weld­ing in the 1980s and was once con­sid­ered to be too expen­sive. Today it has become a cost-effec­tive and effi­cient way to pro­duce prod­ucts. Plas­ma cut­ters can range from hand held devices to large cut­ters as an EOAT for a robot­ic arm, cre­at­ing accu­rate cuts.

Plas­ma Cut­ting Principle

The plas­ma cut­ting prin­ci­ple is based off of the four states of mat­ter. Most are famil­iar with the first three stats, sol­id, liq­uid, and gas. How­ev­er plas­ma has been dis­cov­ered as the fourth state.

The plas­ma cut­ting prin­ci­ple is based on plas­ma as a gas that is heat­ed to extreme tem­per­a­tures until it reach­es the fourth state of mat­ter. In this state the elec­trons in the atoms of the plas­ma sep­a­rate from their nuclei. This frees the elec­trons to be able to move around and with great speed, crash­ing into oth­er free elec­trons. These col­li­sions cause a release of ener­gy, which is used as the pow­er sup­ply for plas­ma cutters. 

Plas­ma Cut­ting Details

What do the states of mat­ter have to do with robot­ic cut­ting? With­out plas­ma there would not be enough pow­er for the cut­ters to make their incisions. 

As the gas is heat­ed to the plas­ma state, an elec­tron­ic arc is sent through a con­strict­ed open­ing called the noz­zle. Inside the noz­zle is an elec­trode, which was sep­a­rat­ed from an atom when the gas was heat­ed. A pilot arc is used as a pow­er source for the elec­trode, con­nect­ing it to the nozzle. 

The next step in the plas­ma cut­ting prin­ci­ple is to bring the noz­zle in con­tact with the met­al to be cut. A spark is gen­er­at­ed with con­tact and cre­ates an elec­tri­cal cur­rent, giv­ing the plas­ma cut­ter the pow­er need­ed to cut through the metal.

The details of plas­ma cut­ters can be a bit con­fus­ing, but luck­i­ly you do not need to under­stand every last detail to reap its ben­e­fits. Along with sav­ing mon­ey and time, plas­ma cut­ters make clean/​accurate cuts with no met­al chips. 

For more infor­ma­tion on plas­ma cut­ters or a for­mal quote, please con­tact Robots​.com online or at 877−762−6881.