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Hello! I want to build a plasma cutter and am still very new to Linux. I created a test setup with a Thinkcenter, 7i96s and thcad 300. I think I have configured everything well. I also connected a stepper motor for testing, which also rotates at the correct speed. The only thing that bothers me is that in all the videos I find the burner position is shown, but mine isn't. Does anyone have an explanation/solution for this? But it's only in QTplasmac. If I use the GUI Axis then I can see the position. I hope it's just a small setting.
I installed it according to Talla83 from YouTube
uname -a
Linux Linuxcnc 6.1.0-18-rt-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Debian 6.1.76-1 (2024-02-01) X86_64 GNU/Linux

I've come up with something new. When I start the program I see the machine table with the limits but as soon as I press Home or something it disappears and I can no longer see the size of the machine table

Hallo! Ich will mir einen Plasmaschneider Bauen und bin noch ganz neu in linux unterwegs. Ich habe mal ein test setup mit einem Thinkcenter, 7i96s und thcad 300 erstellt. Ich denke das ich alles schon gut konfiguriert habe. habe auch testweise einen schrittmotor angeschlossen was sich auch mit der richtigen umdrehung dreht. Das einzige was mich daran stört, in allen videos die ich finde wird die Brennerposition angezeigt und bei mir nicht. hätte da einer eine erklärung/lösung dafür? ist aber nur in QTplasmac. Wenn ich die GUI Axis nehme dann sehe ich die position. hoffe das es nur an einer kleinen einstellung liegt 
Installiert habe ich es nach Talla83 von Youtube
uname -a
Linux Linuxcnc 6.1.0-18-rt-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Debian 6.1.76-1 (2024-02-01) X86_64 GNU/Linux

Ich bin auf was neuen draufgekommen.
Wenn ich das Programm starte sehe ich den Maschinentisch mit den grenzen aber sobald ich Home oder irgendwas mache Verschwindet es und ich sehe die größe des Maschinentisches nicht mehr

I am trying to use remora and a BTT octopus that is already mounted to cnc, could I use the THCAD2 and input the FOUT- and FOUT+ as the "plasma up" and "plasma down", or as an encoder with ChA and ChB ?
remora code I think would apply for encoder?
{
"Thread": "Base",
"Type": "Encoder",
"Comment": "Encoder",
"PV": 2,
"ChA Pin": "8",
"ChB Pin": "7"
},

or remora code for plasma up and down?
"Type": "Digital Pin",
"Comment": "Plasma Up",
"Pin": "PG_16",
"Mode": "Input",
"Data Bit": 7
},
{
"Thread": "Servo",
"Type": "Digital Pin",
"Comment": "Plasma Down",
"Pin": "PB_7",
"Mode": "Input",
"Data Bit": 8
},

Ok, so I can use the THCAD2 to get arc voltage into controller, the reed relay and to get arc ok, and a relay to switch the trigger start. I was just about to give up on the idea of using my older shop plasma, only thing I think left to figure out is if my snapon plasma is a touch start, as non touch start seems to be important to use for a cnc?

You can use the THCAD2 with a parallel port based LinuxCNC system.
 

Hi everyone ! In my fablab (AgriLab in France) we just built a plasma table with a MESA 7i96s, THCAD 5 and Hypertherm Powermax 45XP that works well !

Now we planned to add a diode laser (AtomStack) to use it in parrallel of the plasma torch.

We already successed in making the laser works with PWM on the Mesa Board.
Now i would like execute the probing routine even when we use the laser to apply the exact offset to achieve a clean job (+ Z 5mm).

I would also change the Cycle Stop button script to execute an M68 E0 Q0 an shutdown the laser.

Can someone help us please ?

We use Linux CNC 2.10 with QtPlasmaC.

Find my .ini and .hal files attached.

1. get a Mesa THCAD, it can do pretty good analog to digital, should be more than enough for spindle load, but that would also require an encoder input to Mesa 7i96S, in case the spindle is already using it.
That might still be usable if the spindle does not require the index pin as THCAD requires only a single pin.
Or wire the THCAD to the IDC26 connector, might need firmware flashing.
2. Get a LM331 chip, some resistors and capacitors, and build a voltage to frequency converter, 8 pin chip, 1-3$ a piece, info here:
www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm231.pdf?ts=1...Fwww.google.com%252F
3. same as 2 but get a ready made module, under 10$ usually.

Having installed probably over 70 or 80 (most probably more) of Mesa boards that are in daily use mostly on industrial machines, i would say chances of getting a dud are slim to none, and slim is apparently out of town !
The only issue i have with Mesa is a never seem to have enough !!!
Installed the last 7i92T and THCAD-10 weeks ago, so the only thing left is a 7i73.

Are those cuts supposed to end like that?
I do not think so, so :
-check the THCAD division jumper is seated properly and does not move
-try to catch the screen when that happens, does the voltage rise a lot?
-tighten the screw terminals on both sides of THCAD cable, just in case
-check the high voltage cables from plasma to THCAD
And, do you get latency warnings when running LinuxCNC?

So, we ran our first production run using the 7i96s, THCad2 and QTPlasmac, and it was like jumping in a Cadillac after driving a pinto. Night and day between Mach4 and linuxcnc. Soo happy I invested in switching electronics over and making the switch. 

Couple of issues I encountered and would like to get corrected.
I don't think i have my Z set correctly no issues in cutting or height control, When the machine is homed for the first program run, it runs up to the Z+ Prox / Z home from their it drops down to I'm guessing an offset I put in. it than drops down about 2 inches and zeros the Z drive. not a big deal but when I'm trying to line the torch up it won't go below 0.00 is it better to let the Z axis home off the probe or an upper limit. 

On Probe it does this weird little double probe you can watch it come off the probe switch than go back to it than proceeds to cut height. is this normal or am I missing something in the settings?

Randomly had no arc signal from the Hypertherm 65. this was closer to the end of the program about 45 minutes into cutting. I'm guessing it was a Hypertherm issue as I turned it off reseated the CPC port and it came back no issues but eventually did it again. I'm running Mode 1 in QTPlasmac which I believed was the setting when there is a separate ARC ok Signal?

During that no arc ok phase I also noticed that QTPlasmac will attempt three times to fire the torch after the third round of that it powers off with the screen switch and resets the program. Is this normal if it is, is there a way to change the number of rounds it will go through before resetting the whole program. 

Appreciate any info on these Items 

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!