RS485 For Hypertherms

Multiple X axies would be cool, I have seen it done on a couple hundred thousand dollar machine for a robotic torch mount and a industrial rotor broach drill for drilling thick sheets.

Just for the record, there is a supplier I have used here in Brisbane called Shapecut. Their table is 90 metres long... As you can imagine they have more than one gantry.... Some laser, some Plasma and some Laser I think now but they came from heavy cutting with Oxy. They do a remarkably good job with Oxy v's High Def plasma on 32mm plate.

Another steel converter I've seen has a table about 25 metres long. I went and picked up an offcut. I had no idea how big an offcut could be! I laughed as they had some artwork in the office cut from corrugated iron and hardly anyone would know the significance!

Oxy is another tool option then Phill. A lot of tables have flame and plasma combined.

You guys really don't want me to get back to finishing my machine do you?

phillc54 wrote: You guys really don't want me to get back to finishing my machine do you?

Not if we can help it !

Oxy is nice and i have it on 3 or 4 machines, but it does not have much to controll, some valves, a timer for preheat, and slow motion !
So far used it without the THC part, set the z movement to 50mm when jumping form cut to cut and adding a pause before motion enough for the pierce while slowly moving Z down. It worked, never had complaints from clients who use it ( not much ), so all is good.

I kinda had a look when I first started this project and I think it would be doable. Oxy is all done at one height as well isn't it.

Yes it is, and it is not height sensitive as plasma.
Adding big buttons for up/down while cutting would be useful.
Basically it is:
-Fire the torch ( acetylene or propane with some oxygen )
-Press run on Linuxcnc
-Wait for the set amount in gcode or panel
-Turn on the relay or the valve for the cutting oxygen
-Engage motion.

All these features are nice and all but, are we going to be able to choose what optionsfeatures we want to use and not be obligated to use all for plasmac to work?

I am hoping I already know the answer but...... I have to ask.

Just use the bits you want.

phillc54 wrote: Just use the bits you want.

Which brings me to a thought. Linuxnc's multispindle functionality makes it so darn easy to add additional tools but we started numbering them in a fixed fashion in Plasmac. I think the development team (who is that now?) should think about adding some sort of spindle type to the configuration. So somebody who wants a drill and not a scribe can specify its on spindle 1 and so on. Adding that flexibility that now might save Plasmac from the kind of confusion the joint axis feature has brought (That one has yet to play out. Wait until 2.8 becomes the release version and 2.7 users upgrade...)

Development team = 1 man army = PhillC

We are helping him immensely by requesting more and more features, and blatantly pointing out his mistakes !

That is meant as a joke, so please take it as such! Thank you.

The reality is that a lot of people helped and Phill is relentless in constantly improving PlasmaC and adding more features that the rest of us relentlessly request !