Arc off tip/No arc 200pi, what am I doing wrong?

[mxbean]

I have a 200pi and the unit was working great about a month ago. Its been sitting the last month and I fired it up today to cut some steel and basically nothing happened. I'm on CUT, + is ground, - torch, correct air psi, and everything else. It only arcs when I touch the metal with the tip and arcs against the side of the tip. I'm still very new to this, but find it very strange it was cutting like a champ a month ago. Oh, and smoke starts coming out around the head eek2icon Any suggestions? Thank you.

[Gadget]

Try cleaning and tightening your consumables, sounds like they may be loose or slightly corroded at the connections. Let us know how it turns out.
Dan

[KHK]

Check the following;
Air comes out when you press the switch.
Your consumables are tight.
The center electrode on the consumables is spring loaded and it moves freely.
When the unit was not in use the torch lines were pluged in or caped (bugs like small places)

Let us know.

[ISKI]

Mxbean, did it get better? My Lincoln Pro-cut did this often, as stated above, I would dissassemble the tip and then clean and reassemble. This fixed it every time except when I had the air pressure too low.

[tigqk]

Do you have it set to ac or dc, I believe ac is the right one, mine does the same when you hook to dc, you bring the torch near what you want to cut and it arcs to the materials