Lidl Plasma Cutter, anyone else got one?

I went to Lidl for some coffee pods and came away with a plasma cutter because I already have a wetsuit - Lee will know what I am talking about!!!

After a lot of fafing around & at one point deciding it was faulty & I should return it I finally cracked it and got some really good results cutting a lot of very rusty 6mm plate.

I have one thing I don't understand though which concerns the little wheel set it comes with that are like stabilisers for a childs bike, they are intended to maintain a constant distance between the torch nozzle & the workpiece but there are a couple of things that dont make sense.

The nozzles supplied are drag nozzles with cross relief in the face intended to be dragged across the workpiece and indeed they work very well like that, if I strike an arc & manually keep a seperation I get a very poor wandering cut with lots of dross, pretty much what I expected.

So OK, I think I need different nozzles to use with the attachment but the unit does not appear to have HF starting for the arc, it will not strike unless the nozzle is actually touching the workpiece to make the contact, one mm away and nothing happens.

If that is the case how are you supposed to initiate the arc when the wheel set is maintaining a seperation?

Edited 1 October, 20214 yr by J.R.