Cheap plasma cutter

[Stumpy]

Anybody have experience with cheap plasma cutters?

I've always wanted one, but didn't want to spend the money. Now I'm seeing some in the $200-300 range, that I might could justify buying.

JEGS plasma Cutter

Mainly looking at that one. It won't get used a ton, I don't think, but would definitely come in handy.

Thoughts?

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

I bought one on eBay a year or two ago for less than $200. For little stuff I still use a death wheel 90% of the time as free hand with a plasma I get really irregular cuts. If I can use a straight edge, it's a nice straight cut.

Mine works a lot better if it's blowing down. Side cuts are generally not very good and need a lot of clean up with the flapper. It might be my air compressor though, so that's another thing ... you need a pretty good sized air compressor to make good cuts, especially long ones.

 

[Stumpy]

I have a 60 gallon, 7hp compressor, that I would hope is good enough.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I bought a Hobart AirForce 250ci about ten years ago from Northern Tool, and it was under $500 at the time. Now I see a comparable cutter is a full grand. Holy crap!

I definitely like the on-board air compressor so I don't have to fire up the garage air compressor and wait five minutes just to cut. Size-wise it struggles with 3/16" or 1/4" plate.

 

[mdnky]

I have a BestArc BTC450NP, grabbed it in January. Amazon had it for a ridiculously low price, so I couldn't pass it up. Pretty sure it was a closeout, but for $138 who cares. It's a 45amp low frequency pilot arc model.

I haven't used it a ton, and I've been limited to using it on 115V at the moment, but so far it's worked pretty well. Their other cutters had somewhat decent reviews and are in that $200-300 range, but are high frequency units (as are most cheaper cutters).

I had my eye on one by Lotos (LTP5500DCNC) that was selling for ~$430 with the coupon at that time. It's a low frequency pilot arc model with the control circuit for CNC/table use. Might still grab one eventually. They're the cheapest ones that are recommended by users in the Langmuir Systems forums for CNC use.