Plasma Punch 1

[jaykay]

I am looking to buy a new plasma punch. Requirements are 60 tons, throat depth of 60 inches, 30 to 40 punch stations, 1/2" to 3/4" material thickness, with a +/-1/16 tolerance on holes. Whitney is about the only one I have found on the web. Has anyone bought one recently, I don't have a good feel about the current prices. If you have a plasma punch that you have had a good exprience with and would recommend, please let me know.

 

[BillPSU]

Whitney's are the only game in town close to your expectations however there are some problems with Whitney's. If you are going to use plate make sure it is flat and clean. Do not use plate-plate. Too much out of flatness and scale becomes a problem. Standard decoiled and flattened is also not flat enough and it has coil memory which translates into banana shaped parts when plasma cut. Recommend cold reduced decoiled plate (Robinson Steel, Olympic Steel, etc. Use smaller plates when possible, roller balls have problems with localized loading from heavy plates and die from scale contamination. Get the oxygen injected torch. Limit your use of heavy plate. We limited to .500 plate. Maintenance costs are high. Torch replacement parts, power supply repairs, ball screw replacement, slugde dragout system all have weaknesses.
I no longer work for this company however they replaced some of the Whitneys with laser machines. The last Whitney's cost about $600,000 but they bought 3 machines and it was 7-8 years ago. Machines were 60" x 144" with tool changer. Good luck with your acquisition.