Plasma/Mesa Guru's

Thanks John. I appreciate it.

I am feeling fairly confident that this system will work out for me and am going to place an order.

Austin

Back to the living in the country....

The idea of it really seems better than the actuality of it. I live in Minnesota and there are so many things you just aren't allowed to do anymore. It is really disturbing. When I was a kid, I could take off on my dirtbike and head down the road. No problems. now though, you aren't even allowed to ride in the ditch, even in front of your own land. And they do enforce it! If you have a little mud on your own land you are not allowed to ride your four wheeler through it. The nearest public riding area for dirtbikes is over an hour away, even though there is a lot of public owned land (old gravel pits) within 5 minutes, and they have shut down almost all the trails there. As you can tell, I am kind of bitter about all the damn rules.

Big John,

I finally got my 5i20, I also got a 7i37TA, 7i42TA and a THCAD-10.

I loaded the hostmot2 using the synaptic package manager and I was able to launch EMC using HM2-stepper 5i20 but when I tried to load the files that you provided it wouldn't open.

I have attached the error report. I am sure there was just a step I missed or something stupid that I overlooked. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I didn't seem to have the THC module in my computer, so I downloaded the lastest iso and reinstalled ubuntu 10.4 and emc.

It almost loaded, then I realized it was looking for joypad buttons, so I got rid of those temporarily and the emc loaded up with out any issues. Now I am off to wally world to see if I can't find a joypad.

OK, I went to wally world... they quit selling computer game controllers a few years ago. Shortly after I got home a friend called to see how things were going. I told him great but I needed a game controller. He said,"what kind maybe I have one" after a quick trip to his house I had the game controller hooked up to the computer but it didn't immediately work. I had to change the hal file from calling it Dual to Rumblepad. Now that part is working great.

At the moment I have the computer set up in my living room, no motors and drives hooked up. I have a new z motor coming this week that has an encoder on it. Then I will build a new Z axis for the machine, which I wanted to do anyways. The old Z was really slow and it needed to be moved 1.5 inches to hit the float switch. I think it took about 15 seconds to set up for a pierce, it doesn't sound like long but it got real old watching it do that.

BigJohnT - could you post a simple Gcode file so I can see what the files are supposed to look like for it, thank you.

So far so good. Hope to have it all up and running by the end of the week, then I want to start adding in some bells and whistles

BigJohnT -

I tried that file, it got to line six and said "can't open file <touchoff>"

how do I write the touchoff subroutine?

Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks John,

My Z does have a touch down switch, however I am making a new Z this week. I just got the leadscrew and motor w/encoder today. Looks like you are still using the parallel port for a lot of inputs. Any reason you aren't using the 5i20 for that stuff?

Austin

John,

I am still having troubles getting this all working.

So far I have everything setup in my living room. The motors and drives are hooked to the 7i42TA and are operational. The wireless controller is operational. I have the arc ok, probe and relay working on the parallel port, and they all seem to be functioning properly.

When I run a file, after the torch on relay clicks the program continues running and doesn't seem to wait for an arc good signal, regardless as to whether or not the THC Enable box is checked.

I also don't seem to have the THCAD-10 hooked in properly. I have it wired to Pin 3+ and Pin 3- on the 7i37TA from the FO+ and FO- on the THCAD. When I hit the test it button in emc I don't have seem to have any volts. If I go to the Halmeter and look at the volts signal I also don't get any change.

The 7i37 is hooked up to the P2 connection on the 5i20.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.