The Good, The Bad, The Ugly... Crossfire Pro Plasma CNC Table: 6 Months Later

hello everybody welcome back to the workshop so in this video we are going to do our six plus month review of the langmuir systems cutting table and i'm going to give you guys my thoughts about it kind of the good the bad the ugly and the truth about this cutting system and whether or not i think it's a good deal if you're considering purchasing one so let me flip you around and we will get started okay so i've made a list of the goods the bads the truth and i will briefly explain maybe some of the other little incidental ugly parts about owning a langmuir systems crossfire pro now the cutting table like i said this is a lamer systems crossfire pro so this is the largest one they make this the most decked out version of their cutting systems that they have the langmuir systems and there's a few differences there's a few things that i've done with my machine that we'll get into here in just a bit so i'm going to start off with the goods and then i'll hit you with the bads and then with the truth and so i've made a list here so first off let's rattle them off the goods cheap small shop worthy can do small production there's a great community surrounding them easy to use software will pay for itself which is key and they come in the company delivered on what was promised so so that's the good we'll go over the bad real quick just as a quick breakdown for those of you out there that don't have a lot of time the bad the assembly the waterbed leak the z-axis is a weak design size of bed no limits of travel for the xy axises hidden costs short wires shipping and then the truth we'll get to that here in a minute so let's go over some of the bud the goods a little bit more in detail the goods cheap this bed costs very little entry money to get into and if i can find it i'll put the price somewhere up here uh real quick uh when i edit this comparatively to other systems this is the cheap about the cheapest thing you can get on the market for what you're getting a very a good quality machine so cheap that means it makes it very accessible for the home owner the hobbyists the even a professional shop like mine where i'm trying to include this in on the things that i do and in my own iron work and fabrication and things like that for my business so it's a great entry level door there where you don't have to spend you know fifteen twenty thirty thousand dollars on uh on a bed small shop worthy again for a small shop you can fit this in the size the footprint of everything you can fit this in a fairly small shop and still get other work done if you've got a small fabrication shop that you're trying to do or a garage right you're trying to do some auto parts and make up some you know custom things for a custom hot rod or something like that this can be a great machine and a great bed for you it can do small production runs let's talk about that i have been cutting a lot of blacksmithing blanks if you're interested in those by the way a little segue you can go over to blacksmithpds.com and check out the blinks that i have been cutting with the mission with this machine and i have done a lot of cutting and i do mean a lot of cutting with this machine over the last six months and for the most part that has been a um a really pleasing experience be able to get a lot of blanks cut in a short amount of time is you know is pretty good definitely way faster than anything you can do by hand even with a hand plasma cutter just way faster the the ability to duplicate parts on at scale even at a small scale like this it can be very handy and can really up your production it's got a great community online they have a lot of online articles and forums on their website so once you you can get a part of that without even owning a machine you just you can read people's comments and what they're having problems with and it seems like there's always somebody helping somebody else out get their machine figured out or whatever problems they may have so there's a really good community around this machine and really strong stronger than what i've seen in any other uh this type of homeowner grade slash you know prosumer consumer grade prosumer grade plasma cutter bed so far langmuir system seems to be the best community there is out there easy to use software this machine runs off of fire control software i know that they have a different one where you can run it off of mach 3. i can't comment to that because i've never used that software i've only used what's come with the machine which was fire control software where pretty easy you don't need a computer degree or anything like that to figure out how to download it onto your computer and get stuff set it up it kind of basically leads you through that process it's just drag and dropping kind of some files and you're good to go so so the software is pretty easy everything's clearly labeled on the computer that makes sense to me there's no you know weird spracketing the english here it's literally you know stop go start stop buttons you know forward backwards x y axis right like you you have actual controls and if you get yourself a touch screen laptop to work with it's really super handy in the shop with the touch screen capability of a laptop you can just kind of press on the you know interface there and it makes things a lot nicer you don't need a big you know mouses and a lot of stuff like that it's just a small little thing that really is uh helps out one other thing i'll say it's a pro about the software is it gets updated regularly and they are really good about again around that community suggestion fixing bug fixes in the software so if there's any glitches with your machine you might just have to upgrade to the newest version of the software and boom the bug fixes are you know all the problems you might have been having or little glitches they're gone so they're really good about staying up on top of that so that's pretty good the last last on the good thing is it will well not the last second the last excuse me it will pay for itself so this is a huge consideration if you're trying to put this thing to work and put it in your shop for use now obviously if you're just a home a home person that you just want to work use it for your own projects that doesn't matter and so that makes that cost a lot higher to you but if you're going to be doing it as a business you'll be cutting stuff making signs to sell who knows what whatever you may get into right making custom fabricated pieces that ability right there to be able to pay for itself and have an roi is really important i know it's important in my shop and this machine has already well and full paid for itself it's completely paid off which is an absolute godsend and i owe that to my blacksmithing family here on youtube our community here you all really came went way over the top to take care of jessica and i during christmas time and buying ornament blanks and things like that from us that was a huge help into paying you know completely paying this system off so so we are we've actually gotten a return on our investment now so that is awesome so thanks for that last but not least on the good part company the company delivered on what was promised there's a lot of questions about okay hey you know i tried to call a number or there wasn't you know there's not a lot of information you know other than just what state on their website you know people have have problems uh you know wondering whether this is a legit company well i received my machine it's here they delivered what was what they had promised on so yeah they're a legit company as far as i know i've got my machine along with thousands of other people have the one thing i could say about it is you know which will get into the bad they're always on back order so you just kind of have to stick with that that's it's one of those rare times that an online company when they say they're on backorder they're actually on back order i don't think they have a warehouse of these sitting around and they're just you know shipping them at at random intervals they really are on back order so you can the wait time that you're going to have is accurate so that brings us into the bad let's get into the badge shall we assembly the assembly on this machine was really over the top i am a very handy person i'm very mechanically inclined and i just think there's one too many bolts and gizmos and widgets and things like that that you have to assemble the company could have spent a little extra time doing some pre-assemblies but literally nothing nothing was pre-assembled so you you've got that i bet you i get almost i almost guarantee it there's probably a thousand nuts and little bolts and things like that that you have to arrange and figure out what goes with what and assemble yourself again that's something they could have took care of right there at the factory and have some pre-assembly work done and it would have been able to be just fine likewise there are some elements here that could have just been welded at the factory for the amount of time and kept perfectly square and would have stopped me from having about five six hours of trying to get everything squared up and and in line and and tracking right and things like that so a lot of bolts a lot of crisscross they're just the assembly if you purchase one of these you'll you'll see there's some other there's some other tutorials on how to like assemble these machines out there on the internet that you can go check out if you go look those up you'll you'll see what i'm saying a lot of times guys will cut out a whole lot of the they'll edit out portion of the assembly work just because it's a lot uh you have to assemble the z-axis you have to assemble i mean you have to assemble everything on this anything that has a bolt you basically have to assemble it on this machine and i just found that to be quite tedious when you get all your parts in you got a lot of stuff to deal with on this machine now again your results are going to vary if you buy just the regular crossfire bed that's a smaller thing there's less parts and pieces to it so you know just be advised that's that's a bad in my opinion is the k is the kind of convoluted assembly it could have been a lot easier for the customer to assemble had they just spent a little bit time more time at the welder creating pre-assemblies this is probably one of my largest gripes with the machine is this next one is the waterbed leak the waterbed has leaked from moment one started from moment one uh to their credit i mean they give you a little bit of a they give you a little silicone to go with i even added my own silicone to the joint on top and try to goop it and the thing just leaks from moment one it's a two it's a like a clam shell design so it's two halves that get bolted together down a seam like that and the little tiny bolts they put with it they're junk there's just there's no there's no two ways about it they're just junk the little tiny bolts and little washers and trying to get it to pull together and and dealing with the silicone it's a mess and yeah just shouldn't be done for as small as this bed is they could have broke this pan all in one piece it had been in one piece and you wouldn't have any problem with that whatsoever again that's something on the manufacturer side of things that they could have already had done basically they have a lot more work making shipping it in two halves than they would if it was just one solid sheet they have way more joints and they've introduced a lot of problems so again my bed leaks leaks like a sieve and it has since moment one eventually i'll care enough that it'll aggravate me enough that i will probably just weld it up solid and that has been a fix and that's a common that's a common thing in the in their threads in their community threads is people's water beds leaking and if a company can fix software like that they should fix that manufacturing issue and make it a solid pan if they're gonna do it for no bigger than the bed is there's no excuse for it so just give you an idea i you even run screws you run self-tapping screws through the bottom of the water bed into the frame and none of that has leaked knock on wood i don't get any wood around here none of that has leaked but that seam has leaked for moment one so i cannot recommend the waterbed action on it especially for what you pay you pay an extra couple hundred bucks to three hundred bucks for the waterbed add-on itself and uh i wouldn't say that that was a good value for your time you could probably get with a regular fab shop around and get some stainless broke up as a solid sheet it's a basic thing so yeah waterbed leak bad moving on z-axis is a weak design so as i have found with mine and why i say that the z-axis is a weak design the z-axis is really made for a hobbyist grade a hobbyist grade plasma torch it is not made for a professional cutting torch like the hypertherm uh 65 i've got a big cutting torch on there that's got an actual machine torch in it that i had to buy an extra additional bracket that didn't come with it and when it's all put together the whole system's a little bit too heavy for it and the bearings the little roller bearings they get give you on the z-axis they just can't handle it so what what does that mean that means on anything large when you try to cut some large steel you're going to notice a lot of wandering of your cut line so your cuts aren't going to come out square so if you're trying to cut real thick stuff and you've bought a really professional plasma cut you know a really professional plasma cutter and added it to the system the z-axis is just inadequate when it comes to that next size of bed this is all on there to the bed and these are some of these things that i've just this is the truth of owning the machine this isn't a fluffy little you know flowery piece that you see everybody do because well they have some affiliate income to make from it let's go with the size of bed so the reality of the size with this bed here is that you're going to be cutting small stuff that's fair enough you can fit a four foot sheet on here that's fine a four foot by three foot sheet that's fine that does not mean that you will be able to cut a four foot by three foot sheet the max cut that you can do on this bed is 32 inches by about 47 inches so it's not a full four four feet the bed the head and the carriage won't run out to the edge of plate so you can't make an edge to edge cut that's bad because most and i will say most sheets of steel that i've received are not exactly 48 inches in width by 8 feet no they are 49 and a quarter inches in width so again you can't make an edge to edge cut so it's always going to leave you with a little bit of scrap on the edge that you're going to have to contend with or just lose money on it so that that is that is a bad that is a bad thing in my opinion with an inch more or two inches more of width than what is needed for the interior of the bed you would be able to make an edge to edge cut on your designs and that would work out you know that would work out great same same thing on the depth of the bed if it was just a fuzz bigger just a fuzz bigger we're not talking huge difference here we're talking an inch or two you would be able to make a full cut across stuff versus only being able to have a size a sheet about 32 inches and have to stay with inside of that 32 inches with your designs so again it would be handy if that bed was you know just two inches bigger in every direction it would be great you don't have to go crazy langmuir if you're watching this you don't have to have a six foot bed it doesn't have to be ginormous and huge and it doesn't have to be all these things but literally the plate steel doesn't come in the size that fits on the bed it'll fit on the bed but you you have a lot of wastage in the areas that you just can't cut that brings me to no limits for the xy travel this is the other reality there's no limit switches to stop the bed from jamming into the brackets on the back or the front on either the x-axis or the y-axis front and back there's no there's no stops so you can run the thing and if you're not paying attention and you have to be careful of this say if you've got a design and it's really close to the edge of your plate you can actually run off that plate and just jam up into you know it gets jammed up against the bolts on this side bolts on that side and front and back that that is one of those things that i didn't know certainly when i first bought this thing cnc work is all new to me and especially cnc plasma is all completely new to me so those are things i didn't know to look out for but you're probably going to have to get some limit switches or you have to be very very careful that's just the that's just the reality of it it'd be nice if the system had some sort of way of telling hey i can't go past these limits for the bed they could probably they could probably even do that in the software if you have a design that is exceeding the far extension limits of the bed it could give you an error code or something to where you can make a tweak versus you having to really stand by this thing and watch and it comes crashing into crashing into the bed because that's not good not good for the motors not good for the backlash nuts next thing up hidden costs so let's get into that a little bit and i'm going to kind of roll in the next one short wires there's short wires involved in hidden costs so the hidden cost of this machine when you see what the advertised price of the unit is on the langmuir systems website you will see you will see the price of the machine it'll look flashy it'll look cheap but then underneath that are all the add-ons right and that's not the hidden cost those are all up there those are all optional you can do that the hidden cost for me came from going from a professional machine i bought a hypertherm powermax 65 plasma cutter and so i had to buy an additional cnc cable for it i had to buy a a torch height controller well i had to have that that's an additional thing that had to happen okay and i had to buy extra long cables for everything i had to buy extension cables dc power extension cables in order to get it from my machine that's just placed above it here to down here to the actual brains of the operation and so langmuir systems didn't leave you with any length of cable long enough than just to get to there so when it comes to cable management if you're trying to put things in a raceway and make everything just really nice and buttoned up and clean looking you really can't i did the best i could with my machine and we may go over in a later date if anybody has any interest comment down below if you want to see what i've done to upgrade my machine yeah if if you want to doctor things up real nice and and do really nice cable management and stuff it's not there it's not thought about it's like here's some short cables that are just long enough if your machine sits on the ground under your waterbed that leaks [Laughter] let me let i'll get a little salty about that yeah your your your waterbed that leaks so so electricity and water leaking not a great idea but anyways so yeah so so that's kind of some of the hidden costs the other things that you don't think about is air compressor is your air compressor large enough can it put out enough air flow you're going to have to run some dryers a lot of line dryers to make sure that the air is really crisp and dry when it comes into your plasma cutter that way you don't you that way you don't ruin your power supply or you know eat up a bunch of tips so that that is that is an additional cost that you know you may not think about your your air compressor needs to be large enough to run it especially if you're doing production runs i have a 270 gallon air compressor so it can keep up just fine and it's running about 14 cubic foot a minute of air flow so it can handle everything that my plasma cutter it's sized more than what my plasma cutter means and and that's kind of the key thing there now that's not on langmuir system stuff again they have a razor weld i think it is a 45 plasma cutter and if you guys buy that it's a cheaper plasma cutter it'll you'll have to size your air compressor based upon specs and again there'll be the additional cost of line dryers that you'll need hoses stuff like that there's going to be some additional cost there so those are some hidden costs now that's not on lane mirror systems specifically but there's going to be some hidden costs that you maybe don't anticipate about buying the bed and those can be quite pricey if you're not careful you'll have to wire you'll have to have an electrician or yourself or you know whatever wire it if you feel comfortable wiring it you know having a power outlet put by if you already have something like that then you know you're going to be good to go but again that's an another additional cost that is probably going to be needed you know as well so the last the last con if you will will go with the shipping the shipping that was one of those things that it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me they send it in like five well if you buy everything that i did they send it in like five or six different shipments to you so whatever your actual ship date is whatever your production run is where they say oh yeah you know we'll ship whoever's in this batch will be shipped out in july that might be the end of july so ours was supposed to get here in july and they didn't ship it until july 30th they didn't start shipping until july 30th and it wasn't through until the mid middle of august before we had all boxes in and accounted for and the way they shipped them out they shipped all your hardware and your computer stuff all in one box and then everything else in every other box right the frame came in a different box the waterbed came in a different box uh you know stuff like that well the problem is you can't assemble the frame without your hardware so so you got a bunch of frame pieces laying around you're kind of like what the heck man and you can't assemble the frame or the waterbed i got the frame first then the waterbed then uh i can't think of the other thing i got next then i finally got the electronic control pieces you know the the hardware stuff and then i finally got the final bit of stuff which was the things to actually wire up the you know the plasma cutter to the plasma bed so it was really weird with the shipping you just get bits and little pieces and spurts as they go i don't know why they can't just ship it all one load at the same time doesn't make sense to me i've shipped a lot of items in my career and it should be easy enough for somebody to just send everything out at once shouldn't be that hard but anyways so that's the bad right went on a long tirade there i know this is a long video but for those of you who care and are actually interested in this machine it matters it matters so let's go with so so let's go with the truth shall we because i think that basically covers it we can shorten it up and that's the good the bad and the ugly all in of itself let's go on with the truth is it a good machine to start on yes it is that's very truthful everybody out there that makes videos on these that's a very truthful statement this is a great starting machine a great starting option i know i was not prepared i wasn't ready to go jump into a gigantic bed of any sort because you don't know what you don't know until you get into it so was it a great was it a great starting point yes it is so the next thing i'd like to point out is again the the next truth is this a quick build thing where you can just do it on a weekend you're up and running and you're just cutting parts no it isn't it's not a quick option for that if you need a machine like next tuesday that's just it's not it's it's not your thing it's not gonna work it's not it doesn't come fully assembled there's learning curves involved with it a lot of setup work to get everything set up and running and functioning properly and especially if you are not if you're a computer impaired person yeah it's it's going to be a lot of work on that front so it's not a a great quick option to where you just like oh yeah man i just got going to set that up in a day and and i'm up and producing you know day two that's just not how it works there's gonna be a learning curve it's made for a home or hobby shop really as even though it says crossfire pro and it's targeted at a prosumer market it's not really a professional tool or a piece of equipment it's really not you can make your money on it you can make you can and i guess that's considered professional you can make your money back on it you can do things like that that works out just fine but at the end of the day it really comes down to labor saving and cost and when i gotta cut up a bunch of excess steel that isn't able to cut on the bed because the bed's just not quite wide enough and there's a lot of little things that go into that i got to keep filling the waterbed with water because it leaks like a sieve like there's stuff like that that makes it not a professional tool it's really geared towards those who want to get into the cnc space and plasma cutting space and they've got a garage and they've got a little bit of space for it they can't buy a big old gigantic bed and they certainly sure as heck can't afford the cost the other part of that is the reason why i said it's more for a home hobby versus a professional shop is because of the output the max output you're going to be able to put on this bed is parts that are like for instance my 12 and a half inch skillets those parts take up there's six of them i can get on the sheet that this bed can cut along with three little eight inch skillet blanks that's it and you have to take time to load the machine with it you have to take time to pull the parts off remove the skeleton again you have to make some straight cuts to try to get recover the value that's on the ends those things are not handy that's why i would not consider this a professional machine it's def it's targeted at a pro sumo market but it's very very very entry level which leads me into my last truthful point i'm going to be looking for a more professional option for my shop myself because i would like to be able to lay on a sheet of material and let the machine run and it had the reliability to where i don't have to watch it 24 7. which this machine you kind of have to do you have to baby it you have to tinker with it there's going to be little issues arise and you're going to have to make adjustments and you're not to put things back into square and stuff like that it's just what this machine is and so you can't change it so i'm going to be looking for more of a pro for a more professional option when it comes to a cutting table that has less setup time and things like that and that can handle a lot bigger sheets now i'm coming from a position that i can say that because i have bought this machine and it has paid for itself and so therefore i can say things like that right but if you're just getting into it and you've got maybe you got a stimulus check in maybe you got tax returns but whatever wherever you're at when you're watching this video or maybe got a little bit of extra extra cash in your savings and you thought hey this is something that i could maybe get into and do some flea markets and shows and stuff then yes it's going to be a great machine and a great quality machine for that purpose but just keep keep in mind and realize that this isn't one of those where you can just type something into the computer you get your coffee you walk away and an hour later you can come back and everything's been cut perfect the machine shut off and put itself to bed that's just not the reality of doing cnc work so that's the truth last last thing would i buy it again yes i would i think it's a great option if you're going to get started into the cnc space i think it's i think it's definitely helped my business quite a bit grow a little bit in that department so i do like it in in that result with all of its little quirks and issues and little fixes and little buggy issues things that you have to mess with it's really not too bad when the machine is running it does what it's supposed to do and it guides your cutting torch and the quality of your cut will be based upon how good your cutting is your plasma cutter is at creating a nice arc but other than that yes before i go down any more bunny trails yes i think it's worth the buy if you're interested in purchasing them again i'll leave a link to their website where you can go look them up i do not get any commission there's no discounts there's no deals there's no nothing so this is purely an unbiased review 110 percent on the langmuir systems cutting table so if you go over there their website and you decide it tickles your fancy and you purchase more power to you and i hope and i hope that it'll be a good buy for you so again no affiliation whatsoever that's it for today thank you all so much for watching this video thank you to all of my channel members you all are awesome you are what makes this channel possible and the content possible on this channel and i can't thank you all enough if you're interested in becoming a channel member you can click that join button below this video if you're interested in just subscribing the channel to see what else i get into we've got over 1500 and coming up on 50 videos for you to take and watch on the subject of blacksmithing and some fabrication stuff in there too so that's it for today god bless and we'll catch you on the next one thanks for watching

Channel: Christ Centered Ironworks

Views: 17,805

Rating: 4.8771591 out of 5

Keywords: langmuir, langmuir pro, langmuir crossfire pro, plasma cnc, plasma cnc table, plasma cnc torch height control, plasma cnc table reviews, plasma cnc tutorial, plasma cnc thc, plasma cnc table kit, plasma cnc table for sale, langmuir systems crossfire pro, langmuir crossfire review, plasma table reviews, plasma table cnc, langmuir crossfire pro review, langmuir crossfire pro assembly, langmuir crossfire pro projects, langmuir systems, hypertherm 65 machine torch

Id: HmyglL2uklc

Length: 33min 32sec (2012 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 28 2021