Cutting without a disc · review
A plasma cutter with its own compressor inside — no bottle, no hose, no water trap — and a listing that publishes neither a cut thickness nor an amperage.
Where we come out The only plasma cutter in this hub that needs no air supply at all — and the only one that publishes neither a cut thickness nor an amperage.
This hub’s introduction says a plasma cutter brings a dependency most buyers underestimate: clean, dry compressed air. Its buying tip ends by telling you to add a water separator to the air line on day one. This machine has no air line. The compressor is inside it, the pressure is pre-set, and at 27 lb complete it is the lightest thing on this shelf by a wide margin.
For occasional cutting that is a real argument. Every other plasma cutter here is the start of a shopping list — a compressor of the right delivery, a hose, a regulator, a separator — and the cheapest compressor on this site’s compressor shelf cannot supply any of them continuously. A 120 V inverter machine that works out of a domestic socket with nothing attached is a different proposition, and Hobart’s claim that you pull the trigger and begin cutting is the honest version of it.
What the listing will not tell you is what it cuts. There is no clean-cut thickness, no severance thickness, no amperage and no duty cycle — and the entire bullet list consists of the words “Made in United States”. Ten plasma cutters are published in the European half of this shelf and every one of them states a thickness. The physics sets the expectation in the absence of figures: the plasma jet is the air stream, a compressor small enough to live inside a 27 lb case supplies very little of it, and this is therefore a thin-material machine. How thin is a question for the seller.
Read on the day this page was built: $1013 at the American Amazon shop.
Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 2026-10-07. The live price is at the top of the page.
| Amazon reference | B014V4LJWS |
|---|---|
| EAN | 0715959613620 |
It removes the dependency this hub’s introduction calls the one most buyers underestimate. Every other plasma cutter on this shelf needs clean, dry compressed air — which in practice means a compressor, a hose, a regulator and a water separator, and the buying tip here says to add that separator on day one. This machine carries its own air. For someone cutting occasionally, that is the difference between a tool and a project.
The listing does not say, and on a plasma cutter that is the specification. This hub’s buying tip is built on the distinction: severance thickness is the maximum the machine can force through, leaving a dross-covered edge, and clean cut is what you can weld afterwards — usually a little over half the severance figure. All ten plasma cutters published in the European half of this shelf state one or both. This page states neither, nor an amperage from which either could be estimated. The model name implies 12, which in Hobart’s naming is the amperage class rather than a thickness.
Because the plasma jet is air. The arc ionizes a stream of compressed air and the gas does the cutting and the cooling, so the volume and dryness of that stream set the cut quality and the tip life directly. A compressor small enough to fit inside a 27 lb machine supplies correspondingly little, which is why integrated-air plasma cutters are thin-material tools — and why the pressure is pre-set rather than adjustable. The trade is honest; the figures that would quantify it are not on the page.
Same shelf, nearest price — what else that money puts on the bench.
Details checked on October 7, 2026.
Cutting thin steel anywhere there is a socket, with nothing else to carry
Specifications: the manufacturer sheet for welding and metalworking machines and the matching Amazon product page. Prices and availability: Keepa. Every figure on this page names its source.
70 A · PT-80 torch, 5 m (16 ft) · 25 mm (0.98 in) · €522
Sold as a working set — a 5 m (16 ft) torch, earth lead, shield and hammer — with a seven-year warranty behind it.
Best for: A workshop that wants one box, standard consumables and somewhere to send it if it fails
15–45 A · 15 mm (0.59 in) steel / 8 mm (0.31 in) stainless / 5 mm (0.20 in) aluminum · €330
The first machine here that publishes its cut thickness for three materials instead of one — which is the whole specification.
Best for: A workshop cutting steel plate and section up to about 10 mm (0.39 in), cleanly
80 A · 25 mm (0.98 in) steel / 15 mm (0.59 in) stainless / 8 mm (0.31 in) aluminum · €750
Adjustable pre- and post-flow together with thicknesses for three materials — the fullest specification on this page.
Best for: Regular cutting in 10 to 18 mm (0.39 to 0.71 in) steel, where the cheaper machines are working at their limit
