Weekend Marketplace Purchase

Found a Thermal Dynamics Cutmaster 52 for $800. With 10 extra tips and electrodes along with a few other consumables.

 

We need a double like button sometimes! Good buy, can I borrow it?

 

My main mig welder is a Thermal Dynamics brand (Thermal Arc), and I absolutely love it. Hands down a better performer than any comparative Miller or Lincoln I’ve ever used. I was sad to hear about their merger/absorption into ESAB. I’m sure parts will be unobtanium now if anything ever fails.

 

Not sure on the wire feed machines, but parts/support for my Thermac Arc TIG welder are still very much relevant. I purchased mine just prior to the merger and I can still get one brand new… they’re just yellow now instead of purple. As for the Thermal Dynamics plasma cutters, they got rebranded as Victor to go in line with the Victor torches that ESAB also owns. Parts are readily available and the part numbers even transferred over.

 

Nice! I haven't used mine in a while, you will like that. Very nice well-built machine.

Dave

 

Every time my wife is with me at HF I point out the one they have….

 

The Cutmaster is a really heavy duty machine. Just use a good air filter to filter out the moisture. I used a Motorguard filter. It will keep it working for years to come.
https://www.amazon.com/Motor-Guard-...r+guard+m30+filter&qid=1704240173&sr=8-1&th=1

Just got to get a circle cutter, I'm not that good a free hand cutting.

Dave

 

I have a Dessicant filter for the moisture.

 

i would still filter it, the motor guard filter will take dollar store tp vs the more pricey filters

 

I had a moisture problem with my compressor and sand basting cabinet, buit myself a compressed air cooler to remove the water before compressed air went into the compressor tank. My write up in "making and improvising tools" thread

My big 30 cfm. air compressor kept making huge amounts of water condensate in the tank. In my southern humid climate I would get about a pint or more of water per hour from the automatic tank drain. The tank would get so hot you could feel the heat coming off it from 2 feet away, and you certainly could not touch it. There was still so much moisture coming thru to my sand blast cabinet the media would clot and plug my nozzle constantly. If it didn't plug it would blow out water with the media and wet what ever I was trying to blast. The cabinet would fill with fog from the hot moist air and mix with my media, what a mess.
So what to do? I tried adding some moisture trap/filters (2 of them) in my air lines, helped a bit but not alot. Then tried making myself an air cooler out of some copper tubing with drains at the bottom loops, helped some but still got water on long blasting episodes. Would need to stop every 20 min or so to drain all the filters. I was looking for an extra tank of some kind to run the air thru to cool it when my neighbour replaced his outdoor AC compressor/condenser unit at his workshop. He gave me the old unit. (1st photo) I thought humm- possible air cooler.
So I removed the old compressor unit and the associated tubing. The condenser and fan were fine. Also said factory pressure tested to 300 psi on a decal.
I found the condenser is made up of 6 separate or individual cooling coils so I made an inlet manifold to connect all 6 of the individual cooling coil inlets together. Then another manifold to combine all the outlets of the 6 individual cooling coils- with a water seperator at the exit end. Now I could have a dedicated inlet manifold and a dedicated outlet manifold for connection to my compressor (2nd photo).
I connected the air compressor directly to my inlet manifold and then my outlet manifold/water separator line back to the air compressor tank thus cooling and dehumidifying the compressed air before entering the compressor tank(3rd photo).
On testing I found it works great with most (about 80-90 percent) of the moisture being removed as the air exits my cooler at the dedicated auto drain water separator. The remainder is removed at the tank drain and subsequence inline dryers. The compressor tank temp went down from what I guess was about 180+ degrees to room temperature.
The total cost of project was around 75 dollars as I had on hand the pipe fittings, copper tubing, and hydraulic hoses, only purchased a 30 amp breaker (220 volt) to run the fan and a few fittings. I placed the unit on some old chair casters so to move around more easily. (4th photo) completed unit.
Just my 2 cents worth, thought this might help someone with similar problems.
Ok, what do you all think? Comments, suggestions, I can even stand some criticism if I have to.
Jim

After I have used it some the last two years I find it is a bit overkill it works so well. Probably a much smaller condenser unit would work just as well for most shop compressors with 60 or 80 gallon tanks. My compressor tank is 120 gallon with a 30 cu. ft. per minute compressor and I rarely even turn on the fan unless the relative humidity is up in the 90 percent range.

 

I remember your write up on that. What i did not know know was that you put it in between the compressor and the tank.
Seems like a good idea to condense the moisture out of the air.