What does this mean to you? That small, intense plasma beam is extremely powerful and can cut through metal with ease. This also means it can wear out consumables. We get calls from time to time about customers that have had issues with their plasma cutters. The symptoms are often that the plasma cutter won’t initiate an arc on the metal, or the arc will start and stop erratically while you’re cutting. I decided to put together a few causes for those sort of issues. Hopefully one of them can save you time when diagnosing an issue with your plasma cutter.