Gmoccapy plasma help

Sorry, I did not mean to offend. 12 months ago I did not know any more than you.

The support for plasma in LinuxCNC is still not mature and from my experience, its not a good machine to choose as a starter project (which is what I did). There are no easy ways, you have to learn how to edit your hal and ini files. That means you need to take the time to read the docs. Read some sample files and examples and try to understand them.

There have been a few of us trying hard to build features that rival high end commercial systems but it has been hard work and its all still fragmented. Hopefully it will all come together and become simpler. And now we have a commercial manufacturer in Grotius trying to adopt LinuxCNC for is plasma tables. Hopefully, that will help plasma move forward.

Rod, I understand what you mean by things being fragmented, that's the word that jumped in my mind when you said everything is well documented. There is much documentation out there but it is a bit scattered which makes things somewhat more difficult for the new guy who is on a rather steep learning curve.

I'm super impressed with how LCNC is a grass roots effort and see why things aren't as easy as I wish them to be..yet. At the end of the day we're all interested in building work-saving machinery, I hope to be part of the solution to also save work on the implementation of things, making it easier for everyone down the road.

I'm working 16-18 hours per day in my shop welding, fabricating and powder coating just to keep up with client deadlines and trying to learn bits and pieces of LCNC as the opportunity arises which is a lot to bite off all at once. I did not even realize there was a manual for LCNC until maybe 10 days ago, I've been reading and re-reading it and things are starting to click as far as the progression of how the files work together bit it is still a lot for me to chew on, hopefully Grotius can give me the last bit of push over the hump with his extremely gracious offer to assist me in compiling a workable configuration.

Okey,

I understand Plasmaguy's frustrating's a little bit. For newbie's linuxcnc plasma is very difficult
in relation to Mach3 plasma to start with.

Now i am almost 1 year learning linuxcnc and have only one test bord with modbuss running and also a touch screen is working.

Okey in the meantime i have made a nice python based application for controlling plasma. This is made possible by Chris Morley and
by Norbert and by John Thornton and by Rodw (my friend from australië). Without sharing their information i was delivered to Stone Edge. I have much respect for the helper's at this forum. I would preferr to make time for tutorial's like building a .comp file.
But also a new forum layout can do many good things. I was year's admin of my own forum in Holland. I will make a new test forum layout and let you see the difference.

I have thought about making my config ready for integrating in the linuxcnc distribution.
I think it would help many people on earth, worldwide. So it's up to me. But i think Rodw must make the connection's for me to the
git. He is the person to realise this issue. I will make the install guide for the plasma newbie. It is better then Mach3. It never
stuck's. That is what i know about linuxcnc 32 bit.

Grotius wrote:

I have thought about making my config ready for integrating in the linuxcnc distribution.
I think it would help many people on earth, worldwide. So it's up to me. But i think Rodw must make the connection's for me to the
git. He is the person to realise this issue. I will make the install guide for the plasma newbie. It is better then Mach3. It never
stuck's. That is what i know about linuxcnc 32 bit.

Grotius, this is a great idea and I'm happy to help where I can. In the docs, there is a page about how to use git.
linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/code/contributing-to-linuxcnc.html

It is still very much a mystery to me. I think I'd ask questions on the IRC chat line and the developers email list. I'm sure you woull receive a warm welcome. I think the process is roughly create a new git account, create a copy of the Linuxcnc master branch repository in your account, pull it down to your PC, make your changes. get permission to push a new branch to the main Linuxcnc repository and you will be able to rebase your changes with master from time to time so you don't get left behind. Once you have a stable config, you can ask for your changes to be merged into the main code base. I'm sure there are a few of us who would help but it would be important to agree on what is in scope and have a clear vision of the final objective. Stuff that comes to mind includes some of the components I've written like corner lock, torch voltage sampling and so on. Those components and others like it need to become part of the standard linuxcnc config if plasma is going to get good support in Linuxcnc.

Did you ever share this? I would so appreciate anything you could throw my way or via git.

I am currently in the process of retrofitting an older large plasma machine. My plan now is to start with the old torches... Get them working (making money) keep adding options before undating the torches which require better control.

Have my basic HAL and INI running but the plasma GUIs and add-ons are all spread apart.

Would it help if I said PLEASE!

Hi Scuba,

If you want make to be quick, use mach3. But in the future in about 2-5 years linux plasma will be exponentional used for plasma.

When it is ready and tested for 8 weeks. i will load the external offsets plasma grotius config to my github channel. You are able to install and compile it from there.

This one is tested for weeks and has extra features : github.com/michelwijnja/external_offsets_adaptive_feed
Is has also negative adaptive feed, this is on top of the external offset branche. This is very handy when you want to restart at history point in your program. Program can do backward movement in your cnc program.
But the grotius plasma config is not inside this github version yet. It will be added later after test period.

Server cloning of pre configured hard disk, is the best solution for linuxcnc.

Thanks Grotius:

Well I have already purchased the Mesa cards, and going back to 32 bit Windows and a parallel port is something I just couldn't bring myself to do to use Mach 3.

I will begin work with what you have shared so far... My project got tabled for another month, because of time and personnel shortages. So hopefully you get to the testing phase soon after. As a programmer in past lifes, I would be more than happy to help you debug things when you get to that point.

Again thanks for all your efforts.