White Christmas

Not since 2001 has entire Sweden had a White Christmas. And before then it was 1981. Here in south Sweden we get a white Christmas in average every 11 years. At present we have snow to the power of 2. Traffic has been complete chaos the last few days. In many places I've visited through the years they imagine that here we have polar bears roaming the streets and we travel to work by sledge. This is not the case. Some years we've had 4-14°C and rain all through the year.

But when I look out the window and see 30 cm of snow I am like a child again and start making elaborate construction plans for snow forts, armies of snowmen and such.

And then I snap out of it and realise it's Monday morning and there is plasma business to take care of. So, here I am in my cosy office with central heating looking out at a snowy landscape planning for the coming product launches of 2010. As you may have noticed we have finally had our website updated with the new single phase plasma systems plus the new 100 A SPEEDFIRE.

Next year holds in store a new plasma that will replace UPPERCUT. We have not yet decided the specs on that machine. (That is marketing talk for what the engineers mean when they say "we are not yet sure how much we can squeeze out of it".) But it will be bigger, better and more powerful. Hopefully not too much more expensive though.

The market also seems to be improving and at the moment everything that we can produce until the end of the year is sold. This week we are winding down and look forward to a restful holiday. SPT remains open for business throughout the holiday but must of us are away on holiday.

So, from all of us to all of you we wish you a restful holiday and we look forward to pick up where we left off on January 11th.

General news update November

As we have been very busy after the Essen fair in September I have not had much time to write on the blog lately. We are still working on all the new contacts we met in Essen, and fortunately the market seems to be recovering. The sales are going up but we are still far from the level we were at in the end of 2008.

Currently we are putting much work into the torch upgrade program for SPARCIN 4000, trying to get all the customers with the old torch system to upgrade to the new X-Cut/400 torch with the new gas console. So far everything is going smoothly there.

We have begun shipping the new 1-phase plasma UNIFIRE 30. We are very pleased with the response from our distributors. the development team is putting together the first samples of the UNIFIRE 25C with built-in compressor. I am very much looking forward to this as I have some home improvement work to do at home where such a machine could come in handy. :-)

In marketing we have lots of work to do during the coming weeks and we are all looking forward to the Christmas holidays when we will recharge the batteries for what we hope will be a busy spring.

New model of the long drag cutting shield for PTA 120

The shield seen on the left in the photo is one of the new samples from the new version. This model will better withstand the mechanical stress it is subjected to by users. Since it is screwed on to the spatter shield it is slimmer and also more reliably attached to the torch. The sale of this new shield together with the standard short one described earlier will begin in a few weeks.

New product line

Since September SPT has acquired the agency to sell Ernst machines for deburring. Ernst is one of the market leaders in the field of deburring and edge treatment.

More information about Ernst and their products can be found at www.ernst-maschinen.de.

Many visitors in Essen

The fair in Essen has so far been a great success with many new
contacts. It is also always a great pleasure to meet our partners in
our stand and update them and ourselves about the latest developments.
There has been a great interest from the OEM's regarding the SPARCIN
4000 high precision plasma. Also the new UNIFIRE has received much
attention.
Afte the fair awaits a busy period following up all the leads from
Essen and we also continue our product development efforts. There will
be a fee more product updatest during the coming 6 months.

Our stand at Schweissen & Schneiden

Our stand at Schweissen & Schneiden is now ready and waits only for
the fair to open tomorrow. The highlights are of course the latest
version of our high precision plasma SPARCIN 4000 and the new single
phase plasma UNIFIRE 30.
We look forward to welcoming all new and existing customers to our
stand.

First photo of the new UNIFIRE 30

Here is the first photo of the UNIFIRE 30 that we are presenting in Essen next week.

The UNIFIRE range will be perfect for all kinds of mobile cutting up to 8 mm thickness. The UNIFIRE 30 will be priced at SEK 13 000:- (approx 1 265 €) and the compressor version UNIFIRE 25C will be priced at SEK 15 000:- (approx 1 455 €). The intended market segments are service and maintenance, construction, car body workshops and DIY who are willing to pay extra for quality.

UNIFIRE single phase plasma

We are currently putting together the first few machines of the new UNIFIRE 30 single phase plasma that will launch in Essen at the Schweissen & Schneiden fair. The new plasma system has a weight of only 7 kg including torch and cuts up to 8 mm with 30 A cutting current. With this new inverter SPT plans to expand its market since single phase machines have not previously in the program.

With the upcoming launch of the UNIFIRE 25C plasma system with built in compressor we take it one step further. The UNIFIRE 25C with compressor will be a perfect cutting tool for all kinds of mobile cutting of metal up to 6 mm thickness. The weight with compressor will be approx. 12 kg.

SPT DEVELOPS SINGLE PHASE PLASMA

The latest addition to the -FIRE family is a single phase low weight, low cost plasma system for manual cutting. During a brief brainstorming session yesterday we decided on the name UNIFIRE for this new machine, although unifying is quite the opposite of what the machine actually does. The UNI-part of the name rather stands for "one" as in single phase.

The UNIFIRE will be presented at the Schweissen & Schneiden fair in Essen September 14th to 19th. The machine will come in 2 versions, one with compressor and one without.

Here is a quick description of the technical specs:

Weight without compressor: 8-9 kg

Weight with compressor: 13-14 kg

Maximum cutting current: 30 A

Maximum cutting thickness: Approx 8 mm

Duty cycle: Approx 30 % @ 30 A

The single phase plasma has been missing in our product range and as we see an increasing demand for such machines we have now decided to add this to our program. With the addition of the UNIFIRE plasma to the product program we now offer a complete range of products for all types of metal cutting.

New drag cutting shield for PTA 120 torch

We are currently evaluating a new drag cutting shield for the PTA 120 torch that is standard on the air cooled range SPLITFIRE, SPEEDFIRE and UPPERCUT. The new shield gives far better cutting performance in thicker material than the previous version. It can be used throughout the whole thickness range of the machine. It is also lighter and better fastened than the predecessor. The new shield will be replacing the old version during the last quarter 2009. As a result the guide spring will be phased out.

New SPEEDFIRE front panel also on SPLITFIRE

In conjunction with the launch of the new SPEEDFIRE 100 A plasma cutting system the 70 A SPLITFIRE has also gone through a face lift. Like SPEEDFIRE the SPLITFIRE is now also delivered with shoulder strap and the pressure gauge has been moved to the front panel. Upon request from many customers a current scale has been added to the current knob.

SPLITFIRE and SPEEDFIRE are both among the world's lightest machines in their capacity class for manual plasma cutting. Weighing only 15 respectively 16 kg and with a cutting performance of 28/35 mm they are extremely powerful tools for metal cutting. With a wide range of accessories they are perfect for all manual cutting tasks.

The new X-Cut/400 torch

We have now started delivering the new X-Cut/400 high precision plasma torch that replaces the X-Cut/300 torch. The new torch features an improved quick change torch head system with considerably less running costs. The consumable life time in X-Cut/400 is also vastly improved adding even more savings. Further, the X-Cut/400 features improved performance in the current range from 150-200 Amps.

SPT is offering all customers with X-Cut/300 torches a torch upgrade at favourable terms. The upgrade also includes the new gas console (see previous blog post). For individual offers, please contact us.

New gas console for SPARCIN 4000

The SPARCIN 4000 is now equipped with a new version of the gas
console in connection with the new torch X-Cut/400. The main
difference for the operator is that the new cas console only has gas
pressure adjustment whereas the old version had both flow and
pressure regulation. This means simplified operation and less room
for operator mistake. Also, the analogue manometers have been
replaced by easy to read digital LED displays.

Holiday is over - Time for new challenges

The summer holidays have just started for many SPT associates. For me the holiday has just ended. Much work lies ahead with launch of new models. The updates for SPARCIN 4000 have been very successful and the first systems are up and running trouble free. During the autumn the main event is of course the Schweissen & Schneiden exhibition in Essen, Germany. All new and existing customers are very welcome to visit our stand. Drop me an email or just post a comment here on the blog to get a free entrance ticket.

This time in the wake of the recession we will have to settle for a smaller stand at the S&S. We have grown accustomed to having a big stand with lots of machines running live but the times are such that we must cut costs where ever we can and we decided to skip live cutting, sadly. We are sure that things will pick up though and are confident that for 2010 we will be able to show the machines live at the EuroBlech in Hannover.

Deliveries of the new 100A SPEEDFIRE have started. We are confident that this new range machine will improve our market performance as it fills a gap where we previously had nothing to offer.

New 100A model has been named

SPEEDFIRE will be the name for the new 100 A plasma cutter that will be launched in the coming months.

Preparing for the summer we are finishing one new model, the 100 A manual plasma that will become the middle brother between the SPLITFIRE and the UPPERCUT. For our new range of handheld air plasma machines we have decided to name the xxxFIRE. The exact name of the new machine is not yet decided. In the coming months we are developing a new 130 A machine that will replace the UPPERCUT.
The SPARCIN 4000 with the new torch is about the installed for the first time in Slovenia. Our automation partner Flexmatic will install the machine on their CNC-machine at a customer's workshop. Since a long time we have delivered several SPARCIN 4000 systems with Vanad, MicroStep and Pierce CNC-machines, all working very well. We are confident that we can match our established competitors when it comes to cutting quality, performance and reliability.

New models coming

At the moment we are preparing new models of our plasma cutting machines for manual cutting. The goal is to present them at Scweissen & Schneiden in Essen this year. The main event is a 100 A plasma cutting system that will be placed in between the 70 A SPLITFIRE and the 120 A UPPERCUT. In connection with this we are thinking about boosting the UPPERCUT to 130-150 A if possible without risking the reliability. Running as a parallell but also very secondary project we are developing a single phase plasma cutting system to meet demands from certain markets. This will probably not be ready for Essen, but it can't be ruled out either.
The new SPARCIN 4000 system is now entering the second generation with the new torch and the new gas console. Soon the SPARCIN 4000 will feature a new automatic gas console that will make it fully competitive with our major established comptetitors.

Welcome

First I would like to welcome myself to the whole blogging thing. This is where we will post interesting thoughts and information about plasma cutting and the products of SPT Plasmateknik AB.