Z axis

motal2004 wrote:

jay1st I am aware that a plasma machine does not have to be HF to be a pilot arc. I will be the first to admit I should have not pinched pennies when I bought my plasma machine. Reading the link you provided it appears l have a very similar problem to what you had, but correct me if I am wrong your machine is a HF type right ? As I do not have a HF type plasma machine, your approach does not apply. I could be wrong wrong though.

Nope, it can be pilot arc without HF.
There is still a ground wire coming back to the generator, and if the torch keeps firing over a gap without any metal around then it's a pilot arc system llike mine.

So the THCAD will never be able t detect any variation in voltage due to height change as the gap inside the torch never changes thus keeping the voltage more or less constant. See picture attached for the principle of pilotarc

Alright so after taking a couple days off. I’m back
I started from a very beginning.
Installed a Linux mint 19.2 Linuxcnc Build , pulled from the forum.
I build my working base configuration.
Moved to plasmaC
I build my asxis plasmaC configuration and when inputting required information I selected mode 1.
Next I began the adding of the THCAD lines in the hal file. But also comments out everything pertaining to mode 1 and switch to mode 0. I Homed machine imputes my offset and scale info
Resting voltage is ready zero
Opened up imperial_squares.ngc file a
Set my plasma cuttter to 30 amp at 110 ipm
Cutting Voltage was was 93 ish on screen .
Made lots of progress, couple questions
Machine stop after first cut and got “valid arc lost program is pause”
What do I do for that?
Second I’m 1/16 of an inc , 1.5875mm , on the small size off I measure the cut square. Do I go up or down on the axis tunning?

I took a quick peak this before leaving for work this morning at My machine torch, it appears it is kicked in just a little bit, I’m thinking that’s where I am loosing my 1/16 in my cuts I will try correcting that tonight.
As far as for probe testing, I did hit the probe test button before my cuts yesterday. This morning I jog the z axis all the way to the bottom, hitting the sheet metals, I jog up 1 inch on screen, measure physically and it’s 1 inch , jogged 2 inches on screen and physically re measure and I’m getting what seems to be consistent accurate measurements when jogging the z axis.
At lunch I’m going to do some re reading the manual again. I might be missing something.
Last think to me it appears that the GUI configuration of axis move slower then gmoccapy. Is that just in my head?

For imperial_circle ngc or imperial_square.ngc
When I cutting it will cut the first part but when It moves to second cut I get error message of “valid arc lost program is paused”
Any suggestions?

Mode 0
voltage is reading correctly cutting at about 123V
on on my test part i has 7 cuts, 6 circles and the outside cut. i have to hit pause bottom to moved on to the next cut.
I have videos that i'm trying to figure out how to up load. here is a link to them for now,
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kC6XCTTn...V2GHv8h-?usp=sharing
quality of video is not best , sorry