Guide
When the cut goes bad
Hot nozzle, dross, off-center kerf. Check the cheap parts in the order they fail.
- Tip and orifice. A dinged lip or a bore that is not the one you selected will throw sparks back at the nozzle. Replace the nozzle before you retune the whole process.
- Layer. Oxygen on mild steel usually wants a double-layer nozzle. Nitrogen or air on stainless and aluminum usually wants a single-layer nozzle. The wrong layer looks like a gas problem.
- Ceramic ring. It seats the nozzle and isolates the sensor. Cracked ceramics make the head chase height. Match diameter and thread to the nozzle. Our ceramic pages name a head only when the spec sheet does.
- Protective window. Match diameter, thickness, and power grade to the seat. A higher kilowatt grade of the same size is a different coating, not a thicker disc. Upper versus lower was not on our sheet.
- Focus lens last. If the window is cloudy and you keep cutting, the lens pits. Handle optics by the edge.
This is a check order, not a parameter sheet. We do not publish gas pressure or focus offsets here.
The nozzle is getting hot. Is the orifice too small?
A clogged or undersized orifice, a crashed tip, or a dirty protective window will all heat the nozzle. Check the tip for a ding, confirm the orifice matches the one you meant to run, and inspect the window before you change gas settings.
The cut is off center. Is that the nozzle or the head?
A bent nozzle or a nozzle that is not concentric with the beam will walk the cut off center. Also check that the ceramic is seated and not cracked. A cracked ceramic throws the height sensor off and looks like a bad nozzle.
There is dross on the bottom. Which part do I change first?
Look at the nozzle tip and the orifice before you blame the lens. Then the protective window, which pits and throws the beam off. The focus lens is the expensive part and is last, not first.