Pathpilot plasma

robertspark
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5 years 10 months ago #192366 by robertspark

Pathpilot plasma was created by robertspark

does anyone know what Mesa hardware could be used for Pathpilot Plasma?

I was playing last night with the online PP SIM (nice!) and noticed they had a plasma cutter

I was looking at the promotional video at 1:18 it shows you the controls

looks like it is 2 boards

one for motion control and a second for THC and ohmic sense (on one of the setup clips it shows you the first run setup and how to set the ohmic probe up)

just curious if it could too run off a 7i92 as a near drop in and run (+ pin remap ) option?

yes I know about Plasmac, no this is not a measuring stick thread, just curious if it could be made to run as it looks like they may have contracted MESA for their custom I/o + voltage sense & ohmic PCBs.

just like the pp GUI.

thanks as always

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snowgoer540
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5 years 10 months ago #192410 by snowgoer540

Replied by snowgoer540 on topic Pathpilot plasma

They use a thcad-5.

You too would need that in addition to the Mesa card of your choosing 7i96 etc

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rodw
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5 years 10 months ago #192417 by rodw

Replied by rodw on topic Pathpilot plasma

Yes, the top board is recognisable as a THCAD. Thats been discussed before.

I thought I heard Tormach now used its own custom FGPA card instead of a Mesa card.
They could possibly do both Ohmic and torch voltage sensing with one THCAD.

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snowgoer540
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5 years 10 months ago #192419 by snowgoer540

Replied by snowgoer540 on topic Pathpilot plasma

rodw wrote: Yes, the top board is recognisable as a THCAD. Thats been discussed before.

I thought I heard Tormach now used its own custom FGPA card instead of a Mesa card.
They could possibly do both Ohmic and torch voltage sensing with one THCAD.

When I peeped in the hal file, it had the appropriate references for a Thcad-5... don’t believe they’re doing any variation of “hypersensing”

Correct they do use custom FPGA cards.

My guess has always been that they work with Peter for them, though I’ve never had that confirmed...

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robertspark
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5 years 10 months ago #192423 by robertspark

Replied by robertspark on topic Pathpilot plasma

snowgoer540 wrote: They use a thcad-5.

You too would need that in addition to the Mesa card of your choosing 7i96 etc

it looked like a wider thcad (custom?) with more pins available on the wiring connectors, thanks

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snowgoer540
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5 years 10 months ago #192450 by snowgoer540

Replied by snowgoer540 on topic Pathpilot plasma

robertspark wrote:
snowgoer540 wrote: They use a thcad-5.

You too would need that in addition to the Mesa card of your choosing 7i96 etc

it looked like a wider thcad (custom?) with more pins available on the wiring connectors, thanks

Like I said they have custom looking stuff, I believe it's still done by Mesa, but I also know he open sources most of his stuff, so.. who knows.

Here's from the Plasma .hal file:

Code:

#Torch voltage
setp hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.encoder.00.counter-mode true
setp hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.encoder.00.scale 1
setp hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.encoder.00.filter false
net rawtorchv hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.encoder.00.velocity scale.0.in 

#Reading actual voltage

#5v calculation (half of the hv resistors shorted out)
#0v=96khz 5v=933khz
#0v to 5v = 837khz
#Gain = 5v/837000 hz =.00000597371/hz
#offset = .00000597371/hz * 96000hz * -1 = -.573476
# x50 gain = 0.0002986857
# x50 offset = -28.6738

setp scale.0.gain 0.0002986857
setp scale.0.offset -28.6738

Thus leading me to believe its at least a variant of the THCAD-5

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snowgoer540
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5 years 10 months ago #192451 by snowgoer540

Replied by snowgoer540 on topic Pathpilot plasma

and I'll leave the ohmic stuffs here too. Unfortunately, not using a second encoder so no commercial hypersensing...

Code:

########################################################################
# Ohmic touchoff input on J9-6 J9-7
# gpio 26 
# Probe latch input 3
# setp hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.gpio.026.is_output 0
net probe2-in hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.gpio.026.in_not plasma-switch-debounce.2.in
# Probe input goes to an and2 which disables it when the torch is on
net probe2-debounced plasma-switch-debounce.2.out ohmic-touch-enable.in-00
# We route the torch-not-on signal into ohmic-debounce.0 to apply a delay to it after it turns off
net torch-not-on-signal torch-not-on.out ohmic-touch-enable.in-01 ohmic-debounce.0.in
net delayed-torch-not-on ohmic-debounce.0.out ohmic-touch-enable.in-03
net ohmic-touch-gui-enable ohmic-touch-enable.in-02

# Note: probe-latch input happens after the GUI disable for ohmic touch (so we can ignore it if needed)
net ohmic-touch-out ohmic-touch-enable.and torch-probe-or.in1 probe-latch.in-02


########################################################################
# Final touchoff probe hookup
# OR of the ohmic touch probe and the physical switch based one

net probe-input torch-probe-or.out motion.probe-input


##################################################

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rodw
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5 years 10 months ago #192484 by rodw

Replied by rodw on topic Pathpilot plasma

robertspark wrote: it looked like a wider thcad (custom?) with more pins available on the wiring connectors, thanks

Actually, Robert has eagle eyes. It has 8 pins on the output side and the THCAD only has 6. I'm wondering if those extra wires are for ohmic sensing.

I think It's quite viable to use the one THCAD, for arc and ohmic sensing, particularly if you have a custom FGPA board.

Its also interesting to see they use the data structures I suggested way back in the Plasmac Development thread where I proposed a SQLlite database that allowed you to select a machine and retrieve the settings for it. Very cool.

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snowgoer540
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5 years 10 months ago #192500 by snowgoer540

Replied by snowgoer540 on topic Pathpilot plasma

It appears you may be correct. Interesting.

Attachment not found

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rodw
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5 years 10 months ago #192503 by rodw

Replied by rodw on topic Pathpilot plasma

If you trace the wire marked CAP back, that refers to the Ohmic CAP on the torch and the probe signal connects to the encoder pins that the Mesa Plasma bit file would call "encoder 2". So they can use the same board for other machines.

I wonder if their card includes the resistors we've been using? I guess they would.

I think they've quietly benefited from the open source development and put together a good package.

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