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THCAD, remove the shielding, from user reports here it cases more issues that using it without it. This is due to the huge amount of power the plasma draws and the subsequent huge amount of interference it will inevitably induce to the ground cable.
I have never even tried to shield the THCAD, from experience i know they make very good electronics, so never bother grounding Mesa boards.
Other things to check:
-signal wire shielding must be connected only on one side, usually at the box, the other side isolated and not clamped/connected
-all grounding wires tied to a single point in the box, no daisy chaining
-are power supply cases grounded? new ones are not internally, so adding those might help
-new cheap power supplies = do not use them, they have no or very weak output filtering
-try powering each power supply and measure, see if any of those are causing the issue
-try removing shielding from stuff, one by one, measure again

Ok So I have been doing electrical work for years now No certifications just some corporate classes. and know the last 4 years wiring in control panels for CNC that have been my own. 

Soooooo. I've been having what appears to be mystery voltages appearing and today I was going to run through some testing on the plasma. all set up and the Hypertherm throws 0-99 look it up and oh lovely major power issue. ok maybe i just need to place the ground directly on the material and that's when it kissed me. a nice little trickle of voltage coming out of the water and through my little knubs. 

Go to check to see what I'm dealing with, and the voltmeter shows I've got about 24vdc running through the entire table. This issue just appeared as I had no issue two weeks ago when I ran the first test cuts on the new setup. 

Here's the embarrassing question. does the common ground go to earth ground at any time. while I understand how to wire panels in, I guess I haven't spent much time understanding how grounding actually works. the table itself has a welding cable as its earth ground (4Gauge) runs outside to a rod driven deep into the ground. I have 120vac coming into a filter that is grounded to the console chassis. it than runs to a 48vdc power supply that is used to for the Drivers. from the 48vdc power supply I have a 12vdc supply and a 5 vdc supply. So nowhere in the system is there 24vdc. Each one of the power supplies has a grounding block that the commons come back to. But none of that returns to the console chassis. 
I'm running shielded cable and the only cable where the shield is grounded is the one going to the THCad2 located on the side of the hypertherm. 
So, when grounding is any of that supposed to go to the chassis / earth ground?
One thing to note is that when the E-stop is pushed in it kills all power to the drivers. When doing so the Table frame drops down to about 1 - 2 vdc.

jimmyrig wrote:

What's interesting is I was able to get it working yesterday in 2.9.2. Same gcode as before. So something happened to break it in 2.10.

There have been many changes since 2.9 so I am not surprised.

How do you increase the jog speed? I've set it in the default angular velocity in just about every location I can think of (display ,traj, kin, etc). Stuck at 1 degree per second.... Might add another slider for A.

Good question, my sim seems to follow the rate in the jog slider but I am not sure in what units...

Is there a keyboard shortcut to jog a?

"[" and "]"
linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/plasma/qtpl...a:keyboard-shortcuts

Does THC work when tube cut is 1? I tried it and it just dove into the pipe. Probably needs some tuning on my end.

I thought that it did but not 100% sure. Tube cutting is experimental and was created for one particular user. We make changes dependant on their feedback. I think that THC would not really be required for tube cutting but I don't do any so I am not really sure.

Finally is their a way to make the display more relevant? Right now just displays a line in the xyz and the "cone" revolves around that line for the an axis. Kinda hard to see what line it is on.

I "think" that you may need to play around with the GEOMETRY settings.
linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/config/ini-...#sub:ini:sec:display

Hey everyone! This is my first post and first time installing and configuring Linuxcnc with a Plasma Table that has four Clearpath servo motors and a MESA 7i76e and THCAD-10. I have reinstalled multiple different versions of Linuxcnc trying to solve my problems. So far the 2.7 stretch version of Linuxcnc connects to the 7i76e just fine and I am able to jog the motors but this version missing the slave axis functions I need for my machine's gantry with two motors. Every single later version of Linuxcnc 2.8 and 2.9 give me network configuration problems but has the slave axis(tandem axis) functions my machine needs. I decided to go with the newest version of Linuxcnc 2.9.2 I went through the pncconf and made a base configuration with IP address 192.168.1.121 now when I open the configuration I get stuck on getting Linuxcnc to start due to this error:

Print file information: RUN_IN_PLACE=nO
LINUXCNC_DIR=
LINUXCNC_BIN_DIR=/ust/bin
LINUXCNC_TCL_DIR=/ust/lib/tcltk/linuxcnc
LINUXCNC_SCRIPT_DIR=
LINUXCNC_RTLIB_DIR=/ust/lib/linuxcnc/modules
LINUXCNC CONFIG DIR=
LINUXCNC_LANG_DIR=/usI/lib/tcltk/linuxcnc/msgs
INIVAR=inivar
HAL CMD=halcmd
LINUXCNC_EMCSH=/ust/bin/wish8.6
LINUXCNC - 2.9.2
Machine configuration directory is '/home/rolando/linuxcnc/configs/my_LinuxCNC_machine'
Machine configuration file is "my_LinuxCNG_machine ini"
INIFILE=/home/rolando/linuxcnc/configs/my_LinuxCNC_machine/my_LinuxCNC_machine.ini
VERSION=1.1
PARAMETER_FILE=linuxcnc.var
TPMOD=
HOMEMOD=
TASK=milltask
HALUI=halui
DISPLAY-gmoccapy
COORDINATES=XYYZ
KINEMATICS=trivkins coordinates=XYYZ kinstype=B0TH
Starting LinuxCNC...
Starting LinuxCNC server program: linuxcncsvi
Loading Real Time OS, RTAPI, and HAL_LIB modules
Starting LinuxCNC IO program: io
Starting HAL User Interface program: halui
linuxcnc TPMOD=tpmod HOMEMOD=homemod EMCMOT=motmod
Found file(REL): -/my_LinuxCNC_machine.hal
Shutting down and cleaning up LinuxCNC...
Running HAL shutdown script

identityKinematicsSetup: coordinates:XYYZ
Joint 0 ==> Axis X
Jount 1==> AKIS Y
Joint 2 ==> Axis Y
Joint 3 ==> Axis Z

hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version a.15
hm2_eth: loading Mesa AnyIO HostMot2 ethernet driver version 0.2
hm2_eth: ERROR: Could not retrieve hardware address (MAC) of 192.168.1.121: Connection refused
hm2: unloading
Removing HAL_LIB, RTAPI, and Real Time OS modules
Removing NML shared memory segments

Debug file information:
Note: Using POSIX realtime hm2_eth: Itapi_app_main: Connection refused (-111)
/my_LinuxCNC_machine.hal:9: waitpid failed /ust/bin/tapi_app hm2_eth
_/my_LinuxCNC_machine.hal:9: /ust/bin/rtapi_app exited without becoming ready
-/my_LinuxCNC_machine.hal:9: insmod for hm2_eth failed, returned -1
1718
Stopping realtime threads
Unloading hal components
Note: Using POSIX realtime

Alrighty will look into the source code and give that script a shot in the meantime.

What's interesting is I was able to get it working yesterday in 2.9.2. Same gcode as before. So something happened to break it in 2.10.

Have a few quality of life questions regarding the a axis

How do you increase the jog speed? I've set it in the default angular velocity in just about every location I can think of (display ,traj, kin, etc). Stuck at 1 degree per second.... Might add another slider for A.
Is there a keyboard shortcut to jog a?

Does THC work when tube cut is 1? I tried it and it just dove into the pipe. Probably needs some tuning on my end.


Finally is their a way to make the display more relevant? Right now just displays a line in the xyz and the "cone" revolves around that line for the a axis. Kinda hard to see what line it is on.

Thanks for all the help!

jimmyrig wrote:

Went to run a file generated from sheetcam and got "g92 offsets are not allowed" error. Documentation seems to want a g38 instead of a g92.

We probably should suppress that error when #<tube-cut>=1.

In the meantime you could hide it by creating a custom_filter.py file in your config directory with the following contents:

phillc54 wrote:

Something like this seems to work but I have not comprehensively tested for any side effects.

    /* check for reached end of move */
    if (! (&joints[jno])->free_tp.active) {
        /* reached end of move without hitting switch */
         (&joints[jno])->free_tp.enable = 0;
        rtapi_print_msg(RTAPI_MSG_ERR,_("j%d end of move in home state %d, homing aborted"),jno, H[jno].home_state);
        for (int j = 0; j < all_joints; j++) {
            if (!H[j].homed) {
                H[j].home_state = HOME_ABORT;
            }
        }
        return 1; // abort reqd
    }

 

 

I was able to test that code and it worked on my machine! Will run it and post if any issues arise. 

On another note, that float issue popped up again when cutting some plate for the a axis while on the latest dev branch (turns out when using the rip script make sure to call linuxcnc in the same line!!...doh). Going to check my probing settings and post them if i cant figure it out.

Thanks, will look qt over the next few weeks as i dial things in. I got the latest code running on debian 10 and the A axis installed and wired up. (debian 12 was giving me latency issues ryzen 3600)
Went to run a file generated from sheetcam and got "g92 offsets are not allowed" error. Documentation seems to want a g38 instead of a g92. 

Including the test file and sheetcam post, sent Les a link to this as well. Not sure which side this lies (should g92 be enabled when tube cutting is 1 or should sheetcam probe with g38) 

jimmyrig wrote:

On another note what's the process for editing the UI? seems like the files are under the /lib folder. load them up in qt, edit and restart? I'm sure its more involved than that but not sure where to begin.
looking at adding an axis for the rotary (A) and bar feed (U) and need corresponding home buttons and read outs.

The A axis dro and buttons will appear if it is a valid axis in the config, currently XYZABC axes are catered for.


For customising the UI, it is best to do it with a USER_COMMAND_FILE in python if possible as this will not get overwritten by any future updates. If the update issue doesn't bother you then the UI is a Qt Designer file and the handler file is a python file.

linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/plasma/qtpl...#_custom_python_code

was also thinking of playing around with blue line thickness that shows torch travel between cuts. Sometimes they can be hard to find if needing to restart.

The preview uses the QtVCP GCodeGraphics widget, I think you can change the colours but not the thickness. You may need to dig deeper for that.
linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/gui/qtvcp-w...idgets:gcodegraphics

will give that a shot and report back. updated the issue as well.

Was wiring things up today and bricked my 7i96 when uploading firmware. Luckly i had a 7i96s on backup which i would have needed anyways for the BOB. Sending it back to Mesa, they will flash it for free (+shipping). Thanks Mesa!


On another note what's the process for editing the UI? seems like the files are under the /lib folder. load them up in qt, edit and restart? I'm sure its more involved than that but not sure where to begin.
looking at adding an axis for the rotary (A) and bar feed (U) and need corresponding home buttons and read outs.

was also thinking of playing around with blue line thickness that shows torch travel between cuts. Sometimes they can be hard to find if needing to restart.

Hi 

Looking for 7i96 (non s) firmware for a cnc BOB (the cheap 5 axis one with a relay). I am using the double thcad for ohmic and thc. 


Tried the g540 dpl firmware but it swaps my steppers around (0-4 being on the g540 not the mesa) could maybe make this work if i had too but wouldnt be fun to rewire. (see pic)

Ideally axis 0,1,2,3,4 on the mesa still, with 5,6,7,8,9, on the bob. 
Currently the machine has 3 X axis. 2x gantry and 1x cable follower (cables hang from ceiling on an axis which follows x so they dont get tangled). 1 for y and 1 for z

looking at adding at least 1 for rotary plasma, and one to feed the bar through the spindle. Might need one or two more to clamp the bar. Not sure yet. 

I have a few 7i96S as backups, would it be possible to get the firmware for that board as well?

Thanks

Something like this seems to work but I have not comprehensively tested for any side effects. 

Thanks! That ran in 2.10 now!

Still having the same homing issue and error message not showing up. I am probably not understanding the homing code well enough. Will look at again tonight

You need to start from the built (RIP) install directory (eg if your are in the /src directory):
$ source ../scripts/rip-environment
$ linuxcnc