Plasma cutter needs compressor: sort the air first

You have a garage socket, mild-steel offcuts, and no compressor against the wall. The plasma cutter in the amazon.co.uk basket looks like a finished kit: a torch, an earth clamp, and a price between £67.83 and £199. If you searched because a plasma cutter needs a compressor, these eleven listings agree. None of the cartons includes a pump.

You can cut once that air exists. Reviewers who already had a compressor carried on. Reviewers who had none stopped. A cutter with a pump inside is a different machine, and this set does not contain one. The printed air figures disagree, so a neighbouring listing is a poor setting for your regulator.

In short

Every inverter in this amazon.co.uk set needs outside air, and no box includes a compressor. Printed lines include 60 litres a minute at 90 PSI or at 0.4 MPa, bands such as 30–70 psi and 45–65 PSI, and two listings that never print a flow. One Reboot 45 A review used an 8 litre silent compressor for short runs and a 50 litre tank when the cut got longer. That is one buyer, on one ASIN.

A plasma cutter needs a compressor you supply

On these eleven listings you cannot run the machine with no air of your own. Each row in our Stahlwerk plasma cutter comparison is marked with no compressor in the box. The brands are SPRIGHOLLY, SUSEMSE, Reboot, PLASMARGON and Haxiaoer. None of the display names is a Stahlwerk model. Shelf prices run from £67.83 to £199.

The SPRIGHOLLY CUT50L lists the cutter, an AG60 torch, an earth clamp, a manual and two nozzles and electrodes. Its bullet says a compressor is required, at 90 PSI and 60 litres a minute, through an 8 mm hose. The Reboot non-HF 40 A costs £199. A UK review says that unit has no internal compressor, unlike another machine the buyer already owns. That other machine stays outside this comparison.

Foster Industrial's buying guide treats an onboard compressor as a different machine, and one that limits the cut. This page does not copy a model name or a thickness from that guide. People who already owned a compressor could cut. People who did not own one stopped. The CUT50L technical details put the item at 7.05 kg, while a bullet says about 3.75 kg. Neither figure is a compressor.

The air figure on the listing

There is no single PSI for this set. Plasma cutter air flow is printed per ASIN, and copying one bullet onto the next machine puts the regulator on the wrong mark.

Three SPRIGHOLLY listings print 60 litres a minute at different pressures. The CUT50L, ASIN B0GKDNVWPD, asks for 90 PSI. The CUT60 at £87.35 and the CUT60L PRO at £159.99 ask for 0.4 MPa, about 58 psi, with an 8 mm connection. A gauge left on 90 PSI is a different instruction from a listing that printed 0.4 MPa.

The SUSEMSE LT55 at £99.99, the PLASMARGON CUT55 at £104.99 and the PLASMARGON PLC65 at £129.99 each show 0.35–0.5 MPa (50–70 psi). Stay inside that band. The Reboot 45 A at £103.67 says a minimum of 6 bar / 90 PSI, with the regulator described as pre-installed. Six bar is about 87 psi. The Reboot CUT60 at £132.04 prints 30–70 psi and includes a regulator and a gas hose. The Reboot non-HF 40 A prints 45–65 PSI.

The Haxiaoer HXC600D at £129.99 includes a hose and a filter and does not state a flow or a pressure. The PLASMARGON CUT65 Pro at £139.99 includes an air-filter regulator and does not print a pressure either. Filling that blank with 60 litres a minute or 90 PSI invents a specification the listing left open.

What a regulator in the box actually does

A regulator sets pressure in air a compressor has already made. The CUT60 and CUT60L PRO describe a filter regulator as built in. The SUSEMSE LT55 and the PLASMARGON CUT55 and PLC65 list a regulator and a hose. The Reboot 45 A describes the regulator as pre-installed. The CUT50L included-components line does not mention a regulator at all.

A small silent compressor and a short cut

The only tank sizes tied to a cutter here come from one review on the Reboot 45 A, which shows 4.5 from 5 reviews. That reviewer used an 8 litre silent compressor for short runs and a 50 litre compressor when the cut got longer. This page will not name a compressor to buy.

The listing asks for a minimum of 6 bar / 90 PSI. The review does not say the little compressor was measured at that pressure or at any litres-per-minute figure. A bigger tank holds more air at the pressure the pump has already made. It does not prove the 60 litres a minute on a SPRIGHOLLY bullet. A separate review reports 6 mm mild steel as clean, 10 mm as smooth and 12 mm as near the limit. Those notes were not a trial of tank size against plate thickness.

A garage compressor that feeds air tools can feed a cutter while it holds the pressure on your listing for the length of the cut. A pump that recovers between bursts from a blow gun can sag during a continuous kerf. Quiet and small describe an 8 litre box. They leave the air specification untouched.

A trade air figure from another maker

R-Tech's public how-to, written for its own plasma cutters, asks for at least 100 litres a minute at 75 psi, a 50 litre tank, and 100 litres when the cuts are long. Those numbers belong to the machines that page describes. They are a poor stencil for an amazon.co.uk bullet that says 60 litres a minute. Setting 75 psi on a listing that says 45–65 PSI or 0.4 MPa is still a mismatch. Flow and pressure are separate.

Our plasma cutter buying guide puts air in the decision order with supply, thickness and start type. This article recommends no 50 litre or 100 litre model by name. A larger tank, in the Reboot review and in the R-Tech suggestion, is tied to longer cuts. Nobody here timed a kerf or measured litres per minute at the torch. Air running out and a duty-cycle pause can feel alike. They come from different parts of the setup.

What to sort before you order

Start with the air line on the ASIN, then the included parts, then the compressor you already own. The how to use a plasma cutter page is the setup sequence once the hardware is in the garage.

The SPRIGHOLLY CUT50L is a 50 A machine with high-frequency non-contact start. The title says 240 V. The listing gives an ideal cut of 10 mm and a maximum of 16 mm, at £67.83, with 5.0 from 2 reviews. The air bullet is 90 PSI, 60 litres a minute, an 8 mm hose, compressor required. If your compressor cannot hold that, the shelf price is only the cutter.

One SUSEMSE review reports a missing connector, so the air could not be attached. That is a fault in the goods. If no air comes out, check that the compressor is running, the regulator is open at the printed setting, and the hose and connector are seated. When those three are true and the torch is still dry, stop striking an arc.

Several titles say 230 V or 240 V. A compressor motor on the same ring adds load while you cut. Sort the supply on the 13 amp plasma cutter guide. We compiled this from the eleven amazon.co.uk listings, the review notes against them, and public UK pages from R-Tech and Foster Industrial used only as labelled context. We did not run a lab test or measure flow at a torch. Prices ran from £67.83 to £199 when those pages were recorded. Links to amazon.co.uk use the tag pcuk26-21. A qualifying purchase can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.