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[Evans Performance]

I made a deal with Larry(GiantTechGuy) before the whole mess went down with HMT that I would give him a quality write-up on his machines if he gave me a nog deal. Halfway though the deal, HMT was sold and went to hell but i am still holding up my end by posting my review here where I think it will do him some good. He is still a sponsor over there so i put one there too, but since it doesn't help in deciding which wing will make your car faster then I don't think he will be selling anything over there.

First off I just want to say that dealing with Larry has been great. He kept me updated all the way through. He is American and is very knowledgeable about these machines. Very easy to talk to.

Here is the Cut50 after taking it out of the box and assembling it. I was going to get more pics of the assembly but there really wasn't much to it. Hook up the hoses and bolt on the regulator. Probably took 5 min to get it from the box to ready to go.



Here is the ground clamp. Feels pretty solid. No worries about it breaking



Here is the torch. It feels very solid. It has a nice weight to it that doesn't feel cheap at all. It also comes with quite a few tips. You could get years of use out of it without needing to buy anything





This is the regulator that comes with it. Again, I am amazed at the quality and simplicity of this machine. It's very user friendly.




Here is my dad cutting some 3/8" steel. I think it would cut a full 1/2" but we didn't have any to try.



Here is the cut. This is after about 5 min of using it. A little more practice would make an even cleaner cut.



Here, he is cutting some aluminum. It makes some nice bright white sparks. The camera didn't really show them though. I really wish we had some thicker aluminum to cut, but this is all we had. I assume it would at least cut 1/4" aluminum, maybe more.



Here is that cut




Here, he is carrying it away. It's very light and easily moved from job to job or take it to a friends house. Having a plasma cutter is like having a truck, everyone will be calling you to help them. It runs on 110v or 220v, so you can use it anywhere. All of these cuts were made with a 220v supply. One nice thing is that there is nothing to do switching from 110v to 220v. Just plug it in and it self adjusts.




Stay tuned for my 3 in 1 Tig/Arc/Plasma review coming soon.

[90dx]

Sounds promising.How much is that unit?

[ryan89crx]

not bad. how much was it?

these pretty much the same untis that Harbor Freight carries now?

[Evans Performance]

$400 shipped is what he said in his thread

[CSaddict]

Very nice review.

[t_cel_t]

i want pics of the consumables after those few cuts compared to new ones

[Hotrodlincoln]

Snap a picture of the power cable to please

[Evans Performance]

It's definitly fun to use. A lot of times I will cut with the plasma rather than my bandsaw just cause I want to.

I will snap a pic of the tip of my plasma torch. I have cut a he'll of a lot more than my dad has all on the same tip. It just has some black marks from arcing but it hasn't worn it at all yet 

[onlyflash944]

plasma cutters > oxy acety

[Evans Performance]

i want pics of the consumables after those few cuts compared to new ones

i didnt notice that you wanted to see a new tip also. i will try to get one next time i an in the garage. here is the only tip i have ever used on this and i have probably cut close to 10' total from thin stuff to 1/4"

[Toysrme]

If the tip has the same round hole in it as it did when it was new it doesn't make a fuck what it looks like.
He means take the tip off and show him the electrode inside it.


I use the fuck out of my ching-chong tig/plasma's plasma (40amp). The up side is that they cut VERY well for the money. The downsides are:
VERY fast consumable consumption VS industry machines - make sure yours uses the long chinese electrodes, NOT SHORT!!!
Just like using the HF for tig, you MUST keep tabs on your internal spark-gap or YOU WILL FRY THE CONTROL BOARDS.
Torches are horribly cheap. You better treate them like 100#s worth of gold.



Here's what my 40amp did oh so long ago:
If the tip has the same round hole in it as it did when it was new it doesn't make a fuck what it looks like.
He means take the tip off and show him the electrode inside it.


I use the fuck out of my ching-chong tig/plasma's plasma. The up side is that they cut VERY well for the money. The downsides are:
VERY fast consumable consumption VS industry machines - make sure yours uses the long chinese electrodes, NOT SHORT!!!
Just like using the HF for tig, you MUST keep tabs on your internal spark-gap or YOU WILL FRY THE CONTROL BOARDS.
Torches are horribly cheap. You better treate them like 100#s worth of gold.
Lastly, the air/water separator does not work as well as a real unit.










Here's what my first 40/amp unit did before it died on day 1 (spark gap):









Will sever cut 1/2", clean cut 3/8-5/16 depending how patient you want to be with it.

[Toysrme]

I wouldn't say plasma > oxy fuel at all. oxy-fuel is FAR more versatile. you can cut any thickness, use it to heat, or weld.

[Evans Performance]

next time i am in the garage, i will take the tip off and take a pic.

the torch on yours looks super cheap compared to mine and the one that came with my dad's plasma cutter. i was REALLY surprised at how nice they were.

[Toysrme]

the replacement torch i had sent out was the same as yours.
keept in mind mine is two years old now and the slant eyes clone shit between each other every 3-6 months. so you have a couple generations on my machine. nice LCD screen and everything.

[Evans Performance]

here is a new electrode next to the one i have been cutting with. i hope you can see it clearly. i took it with my iphone.

on a side note, i am using the tig, arc, plasma combo from Gianttech and not the stand alone plasma cutter. they seem to work exactly the same for cutting though






ok, so that pic is shitty. anyway, i will describe it for now till i can get the real camera in the garage. the only thing i saw was a very small crater forming in the tip. when i say small, i mean i had to look at it twice to realize that it was there and not just a black mark. again, i have cut at least a good 10' with that electrode. i have never used a name brand machine, but that seems like decent wear to me.


the electrode is over an inch long, does that make it a long one or short?

[onlyflash944]

I wouldn't say plasma > oxy fuel at all. oxy-fuel is FAR more versatile. you can cut any thickness, use it to heat, or weld.

for shop fabrication and cutting flat plate plasma is the way to go.  don't forget about SS either

[Toysrme]

Thats a long electrode. Can't find any short ones on ebay right now. That's a good thing, if they phased them out. About the time I ran out of electrodes my shield cup was brittle and cracking apart.

I like cutting flat plate with oxy-fuel. The nice big torches give straighter cuts and you can use use nozzles that give you super fast travel speeds. oxy-fuel track cutters fucking rock the hand that rocks the cradle. Plasma is cool and all, I like it ok CNC machines, I like mine for quick cuts at home. I just like oxy-fuel more.

[Evans Performance]

i used to use a track torch when i was taking a welding class. i could make some seriously badass cuts with that thing. sometimes when in a hurry, i would just push it rather than set the travel speed and still came out with really nice cuts.

i was in high school when i took the class so i didnt have all day there like most people did. when i needed to cut metal, i would have to check out a torch, get it all setup, make a few cuts and then turn it back in. the track torch was just sitting out so i would make my cuts there to give me more welding time. i wish i had gone back to learn more than just arc welding. some formal tig training would be nice

[GianttechGuy]

$400 shipped is what he said in his thread

The 400 was a quote for a scratch and dent machine.
The price on my web site is 499.99.

[GianttechGuy]

If the tip has the same round hole in it as it did when it was new it doesn't make a fuck what it looks like.
He means take the tip off and show him the electrode inside it.


I use the fuck out of my ching-chong tig/plasma's plasma (40amp). The up side is that they cut VERY well for the money. The downsides are:
VERY fast consumable consumption VS industry machines - make sure yours uses the long chinese electrodes, NOT SHORT!!!
Just like using the HF for tig, you MUST keep tabs on your internal spark-gap or YOU WILL FRY THE CONTROL BOARDS.
Torches are horribly cheap. You better treate them like 100#s worth of gold.



Here's what my 40amp did oh so long ago:
If the tip has the same round hole in it as it did when it was new it doesn't make a fuck what it looks like.
He means take the tip off and show him the electrode inside it.


I use the fuck out of my ching-chong tig/plasma's plasma. The up side is that they cut VERY well for the money. The downsides are:
VERY fast consumable consumption VS industry machines - make sure yours uses the long chinese electrodes, NOT SHORT!!!
Just like using the HF for tig, you MUST keep tabs on your internal spark-gap or YOU WILL FRY THE CONTROL BOARDS.
Torches are horribly cheap. You better treate them like 100#s worth of gold.
Lastly, the air/water separator does not work as well as a real unit.










Here's what my first 40/amp unit did before it died on day 1 (spark gap):









Will sever cut 1/2", clean cut 3/8-5/16 depending how patient you want to be with it.

The length of the electrode does not effect the life of the consumables.
The HF points out of adjustment will not cause the boards to fry.

[GianttechGuy]

Thats a long electrode. Can't find any short ones on ebay right now. That's a good thing, if they phased them out. About the time I ran out of electrodes my shield cup was brittle and cracking apart.

I like cutting flat plate with oxy-fuel. The nice big torches give straighter cuts and you can use use nozzles that give you super fast travel speeds. oxy-fuel track cutters fucking rock the hand that rocks the cradle. Plasma is cool and all, I like it ok CNC machines, I like mine for quick cuts at home. I just like oxy-fuel more.

The torch you show above is a PT-31 where as the torch supplied with the GiantTech CT520D and Cut50D is a AG-60,uses much beefier consumables.Your brittle and cracking apart shield cup is one of the 4 consumable items for your torch, hence it will be consumed within time.

[GianttechGuy]

welcome to the site giant teck dood

Thank you, it's nice to be here.

[GianttechGuy]

One thing I'd like to add, you can not lump all the Chinese machines together and say if it's from China this component or that component will fail or you will have this problem or that problem. No there are literally dozens of dozens of factories in China producing these machines, all with the same basic disign but each with their own twists to the circuitry. As an example one factory I stopped dealing with last year had their circiiutry quite wrong, I had 20 percent of the last shipment from them burn mosfets where as my current factory  has had ZERO and that is with nearly 300 machines sold.

[Evans Performance]

Hey Larry, glad to see you made it over.

about the HF point gap, do you have specs on what the gap should be and how often it shuold be checked? even if it doesnt damage the machine i would like to keep up on it cause im sure it will work better when properly adjusted.

[GianttechGuy]

Hey Larry, glad to see you made it over.

about the HF point gap, do you have specs on what the gap should be and how often it shuold be checked? even if it doesnt damage the machine i would like to keep up on it cause im sure it will work better when properly adjusted.

No need to worry about it unless you have arc starting problems and other fixes common to that problem don't help.

[Evans Performance]

awesome. good info

[Toysrme]

The spark gap being out of adjustment WILL burn the boards out. period. Ive burned one out, several others have had them burned out. That's why most makers now supply in their instructions, or in supplemental instructions the spark gap. You better start caring about it LMAO! You'll keep using it and they will keep getting farther apart until it hits about 3/16-1/4" and the board dies. Now you're out how much time to ship the thing back and forth. The HF will continue to work until it conks out too, you wont realize it until its gone.

No shit the cups eventually split apart from poor quality and are replaceable - I wasn't asking about them. I was telling him. You'll go throgh one cup for every set of electrodes in my experiance with them.

The electrode length DOES affect electrode life. The short style electrodes were notorious for not making many cuts until they were eaten up beyond the HF's ability to jump start the arc.

[GianttechGuy]

The spark gap being out of adjustment WILL burn the boards out. period. Ive burned one out, several others have had them burned out. That's why most makers now supply in their instructions, or in supplemental instructions the spark gap. You better start caring about it LMAO! You'll keep using it and they will keep getting farther apart until it hits about 3/16-1/4" and the board dies. Now you're out how much time to ship the thing back and forth. The HF will continue to work until it conks out too, you wont realize it until its gone. Which board burned out? What brand of machine do you own?
No shit the cups eventually split apart from poor quality and are replaceable - I wasn't asking about them. I was telling him. You'll go throgh one cup for every set of electrodes in my experiance with them. I sell consumables for the PT-31 torch ( 40 amp rated ) in sets of 10 nozzles, 10 electrodes , 5 swirl rings and 5 shield cups. I have sold hundreds of these sets and not once have I been asked from repeat customers to supply an equal amount of cups to electrodes/nozzles.Have you purchased your consumables from the same supplier and I only ask because quality does vary depending on which factory they were produced at.

The electrode length DOES affect electrode life. The short style electrodes were notorious for not making many cuts until they were eaten up beyond the HF's ability to jump start the arc. Please explain why you think the longer version lasts longer than the shorter version.

[GianttechGuy]

The AG-60 torch and consumables:

[onlyflash944]

who's messin with the user names?