Plasma safety

[drewworm]

I've been cutting away with my spectrum 2050 and want to know what other folks are using for eye protection. I'm using my regular Miller autodark welding hood, but it seems to have drawbacks. Can you use something like goggles people use for O/A cutting?
What about skin protection - Can you get a flash burn like Mig or Tig welding?

[gangel99]

My plasma training

Haven't done much plasma work but they had a real safety emphasis where
I was trained. We used O/A goggles for plasma work, which are shade 5. Also wore long sleeve leather jackets and mig gloves.

Of more concern was air quality - lot's of bad particles from plasma. The best is too have ventilation drawing air away from you. Otherwise wear a particle mask.

[Pat]

I not only wear the shaded safety glasses, but I also wear a clear full face shield. Nothing worse that a face full of molten BB's. One other thing that I wear is high top leather boots. I guess a good rule of thumb would be to protect anything you did not want to get burned. Also be very careful about not getting any parts of your body near the torch head while cutting....could get severe injuries.

[jbmprods]

i use a #5 black smoke full face shield.

[ivans]

I use a welding helmet

I've got a Optrel Satellite auto darkening helmet and it has a grinding mode that is activated by pressing the shade selection knob. The grinding mode seems to give just the right amount of protection from the plasma brightness as well as providing the face protection that is desirable. It also makes it it easy to see your lines on the material.

The grinding mode is equivalent to a shade 4. I'm not sure if other auto darkening helmets have this setting, but it works extremely well for me while using the plasma cutter.

Cheers!

[Tailshaft56]

i use a #5 black smoke full face shield.

Does that protect from the UV? I have some safery glasses that do protect from UV. They are shade 5.

[Rvannatta]

I've been cutting away with my spectrum 2050 and want to know what other folks are using for eye protection. I'm using my regular Miller autodark welding hood, but it seems to have drawbacks. Can you use something like goggles people use for O/A cutting?
What about skin protection - Can you get a flash burn like Mig or Tig welding?

I've been using regular welding helmet. Over time there is enough flying slag
to 'learn ya' to cover up your hide unless your hide responds differently to blobs of red hot slag sizzling on it than mine does.

[drewworm]

I've been using the helmet, but it is hard to see the lines and with autodark it keeps flashing between "shade" or "no-shade" as the brightness from the plasma torch fluctuates. The first time I cut I was using the O/A goggles which are pretty dark, but don't cover any of your face. I actually got a flash burn that made it look like I was out skiing or something.
I'd like to try one of the dark face shields in #5 range.

[jas-b]

I use a speedglass 9000. Just turn the power off so it don't blink. I'm not sure if it's safe, but my eyes hain't burned at night after an hour or so of steady cutting. Also, you can set the helmet to low amp tig and adjust the sensativity control to work real good. Remeber to cover your neck thogh, plasma light will cook the skin pretty good.

jas-b

[Rvannatta]

I've been using the helmet, but it is hard to see the lines and with autodark it keeps flashing between "shade" or "no-shade" as the brightness from the plasma torch fluctuates. The first time I cut I was using the O/A goggles which are pretty dark, but don't cover any of your face. I actually got a flash burn that made it look like I was out skiing or something.
I'd like to try one of the dark face shields in #5 range.

It also depends on how big a unit you are using. The auto dark jumps around all right but you get used to that afterwhile. I'm using a mine for heavy scrapping and when you gotthte amps turned up to 80 or so there is a lot of bright fire there. I tried it once with OX-ACY googles and had a headache afterwards---so never again.

If you are cutting all the way through there is no fire on top to see, but that is not always the case when you are cutting heavy stuff