Arc OK intermitent issues on torch fire

txtrone wrote:

tommylight wrote:

txtrone wrote: Quick side question. I powered my THCAD 10 from the same 'common' PSU as the Mesa board. Is there anything wrong with that? or does it need to get power from the Mesa board?

Nothing wrong with that, it will work either way.
And i do agree on not using any resistor or capacitor, try it without it. I never used any of those on several (count more than 20) and never had issues, but i am pretty sure it might be needed sometimes.

Stefan sent me the CAD drawing he has been working on for his schematic. I modified it to show what I have connected (THC only) ... does this look close?

Attachment not found

Personally, I would hook the THCAD-10 to the 7i76e's encoder 5V supply as that is advice PCW (who is a "he" (Peter), and is the creator of all the MESA hardware, by the way) gave somewhere in one of these many threads. But, I've already said that. You seem to keep asking the same thing over and over.

Maybe it's time to take a deep breath, know you're probably going to get some aspect of all of this wrong, but many of us are happy to help when you do, and start building?

snowgoer540 wrote:

tommylight wrote: It would be very useful if the poster of that picture corrects it to stop confusing users.

Can moderators delete these types of things? Or is that censorship? :laugh:

Yes we can, but it is a thin line .....

rodw wrote:

tommylight wrote: And i do agree on not using any resistor or capacitor, try it without it. I never used any of those on several (count more than 20) and never had issues, but i am pretty sure it might be needed sometimes.

To be fair Tommy, from what you've written over the years, many of the machines you have built did not have a builtin AcOK relay so it was a non issue for them. At least you know to look for the issue if it ever bites you!

Correct, most of the plasma's did not have an arcok so i made two types of them, one very complicated and the other was the reed switch=simple and reliable.
But i also did some 7 or more retrofits on Hypertherm sources wired to Mesa 7i77 inputs and also never had issues.
Hypertherm MAX100, HD3070 (2 or 3 of them), MAX40, a 200A one and a 400A one that was scary big and will shut down at anything above 250A due to power grid not being able to withstand the load!

tommylight wrote:

snowgoer540 wrote:

tommylight wrote: It would be very useful if the poster of that picture corrects it to stop confusing users.

Can moderators delete these types of things? Or is that censorship? :laugh:

Yes we can, but it is a thin line .....

I think maybe in a case like this, it's ok. Save people the confusion...

snowgoer540 wrote: Personally, I would hook the THCAD-10 to the 7i76e's encoder 5V supply as that is advice PCW (who is a "he" (Peter), and is the creator of all the MESA hardware, by the way) gave somewhere in one of these many threads. But, I've already said that. You seem to keep asking the same thing over and over.

Maybe it's time to take a deep breath, know you're probably going to get some aspect of all of this wrong, but many of us are happy to help when you do, and start building?

I appreciate your input.

snowgoer540 wrote: I think maybe in a case like this, it's ok. Save people the confusion...

I agree 100 percent. There is enough confusion as it is.

snowgoer540 wrote: Personally, I would hook the THCAD-10 to the 7i76e's encoder 5V supply...

Is this what you would personally do?

Yep, in fact that’s how mine are wired.

You can also use the 7i76e spindle relay but its polarised so if you connect it the wrong way, the torch will be always on..
Its working fine for me once I turned the wiring around the right way...

HINT: have the plasma turned off when you first fire it up. With a bit of luck your Hypertherm will sense a wiring error (torch stuck on) like my Thermal Dynamics, raise an error and not turn on.

Eliminates the relay so one less failure point... Took me a long time to try it, but it works fine for me! So with ohmic sensing I have no relays in my machine...

rodw wrote: You can also use the 7i76e spindle relay but its polarised so if you connect it the wrong way, the torch will be always on..
Its working fine for me once I turned the wiring around the right way...

HINT: have the plasma turned off when you first fire it up. With a bit of luck your Hypertherm will sense a wiring error (torch stuck on) like my Thermal Dynamics, raise an error and not turn on.

Eliminates the relay so one less failure point... Took me a long time to try it, but it works fine for me! So with ohmic sensing I have no relays in my machine...

That is good to know. Which spindle pins do you land 'torch on' and 'torch com' at the 7i76e?

At what point do I need new firmware/software for the 7i76e?

The only two items left to connect are THCAD-5 Hypersensing module and maybe (if it's worth it) RS485 connection between my Hypertherm and PC.