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We just had a common occurance spawn an uncommon one, and I just thought it best to post it here for some feedback before we get too deep into tweaking things.
We're experimenting piercing through a 7"+ thick piece of mild steel in doing some test parts in preparation for some 16"+ thick parts. The exceptionally long pierce (computer said 15 min long, but it actually continued piercing for 45+ min...different issues for a different day) resulted in a prolonged shower for the Paser/mini-hopper that filled the mini-hopper with mud and clogged things up.
While it was an exceptional clog, it's no big deal...it happens frequently. We pulled the mini-hopper apart and cleaned it all out. Everything looks in good order. Started cutting again. Everything was going fine for a few minutes, but then abrasive just started pouring out of the uppermost vent of the mini-hopper. So we stopped, cleaned everything out, and reassembled. Turned everything back on, but before we even start doing anything, abrasive is again pouring out of the top of the mini-hopper. So we now have a condition that abrasive just pours freely out of the top of the mini-hopper any time the large hopper is pressurized, regardless of whether or not we're cutting.
It acts like we have way too much pressure on our main hopper, but nothing has changed there...it's still at around 40 psi (we have a double-length low-pressure abrasive-feed hose). As I understand it there is no valving or anything between the main hopper and the mini-hopper and the abrasive stops flowing to the mini-hopper essentially by just getting 'backed up' at the inlet to the mini-hopper...so I can't figure out what would have changed to cause this new issue. Our current course of action for now is to dial back the pressure in the main feed hopper and then reset it to a decent flow rate, but since nothing else has changed recently this shouldn't need to happen.
Has anyone experienced anything like this or have any ideas on how/why it is happening? The humidity in the shop was higher than usual due to the prolonged pierce, but I would have thought that this would have worked to impede the abrasive flow rather than lubricate it. Any help is greately appreciated!
Problem solved! The pressure regulator feeding the bulk hopper is having issues and was allowing too much air pressure in the tank. The regulator was a little sticky so we worked it around a bit and now it's behaving.
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