Welding Tips and Tricks

I teach high school machining and welding and I am looking to update our old wore out CNC plasma cutter with a nice machine . Has anyone on here used a Fast Cut machine? Are they worth the money? With some help from me would a student be able to understand how to use it? Also how are they with customer service? Is there a better machine for students to use remember they are hard on stuff.

Thanks

I run a Torchmate and love it. I taught myself enough CAD in a week to be able to run it. It has a very simple to run program and the Tech support is awesome. Lincoln bought them out and put there name on them now but it is the same parent company. Another nice thing is YouTube has all their training videos so if you get in trouble ther is a video to show you step by step what to do.

There are about 30 OEM manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada building entry level and Light Industrial cnc plasma cutting machines. There are about a dozen that have been in business for more than 5 years, and a small handful that have been building machines for over 15 years. FastCut CNC is located in Canada (Kamloops BC), is a good company and has been in business for more than 5 years, a good sign!

The big guys in this business are: Plasmacam, Torchmate, ArcLight Dynamics, Dynatorch, EZCut CNC, Shop Sabre and Starlab. All use Hypertherm plasma except Torchmate (they use their own Lincoln plasma). Each have a variety of different models, sizes and prices.

I work closely with virtually all of these manufacturers as they use Hypertherm plasma cutters and Software on the majority of machines sold. I am more than happy to help anyone develop a short list of good OEM CNC machine providers that best fit their needs (ease of use, learning curve, size of table, price, etc.)....as everyone has different criteria. Since I don't want to play favorites on machine brand I prefer to help potential buyers off the public forum....keeps me out of trouble!

These small cnc plasma tables have come a long way in the last 5 years or so....great cut quality, easy to learn and operate, and very productive for small shops...some are even affordable for hobby use. I have had plasma cnc machines in my home shop for over 18 years....its a tool I can't do without. Jim Colt Hypertherm

Thanks, Jim,

Since this is for a school, I was hoping you'd comment on this.

Steve S

Thanks guys

I have recent purchased a Premier Plasma 4x4 table and have had good success with it so far. The support is very good and the price was also very good. Not sure how a school would do, programming take a good amount of time at (least at my learning rate).

I bought a ShopSabre 4x8 table a year and a half ago, and I can only say the best about both machine, and customer service!
A big benefit is that the machine is built only 3 miles from my shop!