Neighbor Needs Plasma!
My neighbor called me… can you come into the shop and look at some machines?
In addition to repairing some wiring and solenoid valve problems on his 1951 Cincinnati metal shear, I had to dig into his Hypertherm 1000 plasma cutter to replace a failed relay.
Hypertherm innards
This wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but the PCB is mounted directly on top of a ton of power components… diode bridges, IGBTs, power capacitors, plus has all kinds of cabling coming off of it.
It was quite the adventure making sure everything that got disconnected and removed got reconnected and replaced properly. This is where ability to be meticulous is tested!
Got it back together and working like a dream. Since a replacement board is $850 (and they won’t service boards), he got a pretty good deal on the repair. And now I can go mooch more materials from his stock!