Economics of plasma cutting

I have been getting various quotes for plasma cutting jobs. I understand that there are disposables involved with tangible costs.

It occurred to me that there has to be a figure that would price out the cost of a plasma cut perhaps in terms of dollars/inch of cut/thickness of a given material, thus isolating the procedural costs from others such as workshop rent, labor etc.

Has anyone done this?

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic
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There might be some useful info on the Hypertherm site. There are quite a few variables that influence the life of the consumables in plasma cutting, ranging from the brand and model of machine to material, thickness of material, manual or CNC, basic CNC or 5 axis, edge start, piercing, etc.

Reply to
Pete C.

There might be some useful info on the Hypertherm site. There are quite a few variables that influence the life of the consumables in plasma cutting, ranging from the brand and model of machine to material, thickness of material, manual or CNC, basic CNC or 5 axis, edge start, piercing, etc.

Consumables are not much. A nozzle lasts a long time, and is not expensive. Power costs are probably the highest cost. I think part of the problem is there are less and less that do plasma cutting. Better methods are starting to rule. Waterjet, etc. Plasma leaves heat conditions along the cut edge, and the waterjet makes a very fine kerf and very neat. Plus if you are doing an automated plasma table cut, you need the correct input file. Last is required on a waterjet also, so I guess that is a wash. (bad pun)

Reply to
Califbill

In a free market, the price of item or service is not directly proportional to the cost of producing item or service.

A large volume customer gets much better price than one-time.. Might be 5 times (or more) more expensive for one-time customer..

If there is a tough competition, the prices are lower than if the plasma cutting company has monopoly at the area..

You can only calculate the LOWEST possible price with no profit. That has nothing to do with the selling price..

Kristian Ukkonen.

Reply to
Kristian Ukkonen

So far for me it totals out to ~$10 per inch, not counting the cost of a larger air compressor.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Plasma and CNC plasma are affordable for HSM users, waterjet not so much at present.

Reply to
Pete C.

Doublecheck that figure, Jim. That works out to nearly $190 to cut out a simple 6" circle of material. You'd go broke waiting for the first customer at that price! Did you transpose the decimal one place over?

-- Fear not those who argue but those who dodge. -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach

Reply to
Larry Jaques

It reflects how much I paid and how little I've used it, because the compressor I had was inadequate.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Then it's about the same cost as my TIG welder... per inch of weld. >:-(

Reply to
David Courtney

Ah, yes, the compressor skew. That's a biggie!

-- Fear not those who argue but those who dodge. -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Yes, I have few tools like that, too :-) Don't some of the plasma cutters have an in-built compressor? However, I was thinking more along the cost in terms of consumables.

BTW I was quoted double for the same job cutting by water jet as opposed to plasma.

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic

But the water leaves a finished edge, right?

-- Fear not those who argue but those who dodge. -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach

Reply to
Larry Jaques

These wheels are hot rolled steel cut on a CNC plasma cutter.

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are the scrap so I had to fill in the starting slits and turn down the resulting lump of weld..

The outer crust is so hard a carbide insert only polishes them.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

The most cost effective method that I found for removing the hard thick scale from HRS, was a diluted muriatic acid solution.

I generally use coathanger wire to hang parts suspended in the acid, and when the scale is gone, I rinse with bicarbonate/baking soda solution followed by clean fresh water, and finally force dried the parts. If the parts weren't going to be finished for a while, I'd thinly coat them with some 30W oil.

As has been mentioned many times before.. this acid descaling/stripping method should be performed outdoors, and the solution safely stored away from precision equipment, children, pets etc.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

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