Tried a used hypertherm plasma cutter off craigslist and it cut like butter for a week then just died on me

Took it apart and found the main board was fried from moisture, guess I should have checked the internals before handing over $400, has anyone else had luck fixing these old machines or is it junk now?

3 comments

3 Comments

fiona33012d ago

Rip that board out and check eBay for a replacement.

anthony_jenkins6112d ago

Double down on what Fiona said, check the connector pins and traces too before you order anything. Sometimes the board is fine but the ribbon cable got fried, so you might just need a new one of those for pocket change.

charlesanderson12d ago

Yeah actually that reminds me of something weird I ran into on an older model where one of those tiny surface mount resistors near the connector had completely snapped off from mechanical stress. Wasn't even visible without a magnifying glass and the board looked totally clean until I started poking around with a multimeter. So if you've got one handy it might be worth checking for continuity on each pin from the connector back to the main chip before you toss the whole board. Sometimes its just a cold solder joint or a cracked trace right at the edge of the connector that a quick dab with a soldering iron can fix. Saved me forty bucks and a week of waiting for shipping on a replacement that turned out to be totally unnecessary.