qtplasmac 2.10 arc ok, thcad thc, and Thcad Ohmic troubleshooting help needed.

I am upgrading a linuxcnc plasma from the days when joints and dual axis homing first came out. It was working well but needed a thc bad. So i decided to go with the latest and greatest qtplasmac master branch, Mesa 7i96, thcad 5v for ohmic touchoff and THC. Plasma is a hypertherm powermax 45xp

Problem 1 - arc ok seems to be working. It is being read by hal meter (both the 7i96 pin and the plasmac.arcok pin) but qtplasmac will say arc fail when trying to run a program. I did have to invert the pin as the plasma pulls a pin low. Maybe that broke the gui somehow? I tried inverting the gui pin as well but that just forced it to always ignore the arc ok signal. Any ideas?


Problem 2 - after disabling arc ok when running the program the voltage reads negative. I went ahead and swapped scaling (from -1 to 1). Same result. Flipped the thcad wiring and not it reads 0 for scaling of both 1 and -1.
 
Seems like the thread below mine is having the same issue with both arc ok and thcad. 

Regarding the Ohmic, is this still accurate?  linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/man/man9/ohmic.9.html  
Got the mesa board flashed to the .dpl version. Didnt want to proceed until i fix the arc ok and thc issues

edit - config included, added more details
 

Alrighty did a little more troubleshooting

Set the arc-ok pin to an unused gpio pin, 8 in this case.
Ran the program with the goal of getting the arc ok "led" on the gui to turn on.

had the hal meter up with both the gpio pin and plasmac arc-ok pin|

Both of those would move with me shorting the pin to 24v. However the arc ok pin on the gui still showed nothing.... not sure if that helps.

There may have been some changes. I've attached the latest.
I've tried to compartmentalise it into its own hal file. See my ini contents to see where it is added.
You will need to change some settings in the hal file

If you have a 45xp, are you using the arcOK on the circular connector?
If so in halshow, can you see the input pin change state? If you can, then you have a hal error

This should be mode 1 if you are using the arc ok signal.
[code]
[GUI_OPTIONS]
Mode = 0
[code]

Although TBH I don't know if that does prevent the GUI LED from lighting.

rodw post=264538 userid=20660
There may have been some changes. I've attached the latest.
I've tried to compartmentalise it into its own hal file. See my ini contents to see where it is added.
You will need to change some settings in the hal file


Awesome! Thanks for this will give it a shot

rodw post=264539 userid=20660
If you have a 45xp, are you using the arcOK on the circular connector?
If so in halshow, can you see the input pin change state? If you can, then you have a hal error

I am using the circular connector for arc OK, yep I can see the input change state. (I was using Hal meter will check hall show).

Going to check mode based on the comment below and try again.

phillc54 wrote:

This should be mode 1 if you are using the arc ok signal.

Code:

[GUI_OPTIONS] Mode = 0 [code]Although TBH I don't know if that does prevent the GUI LED from lighting.   Ahhh, this sounds like it could be it, will give it a shot and report back. Thanks!

[/code]
 

That was it! Seems like a bug in pnfconfig as I'm pretty sure I selected mode 1. Went ahead and edited it and it still wouldnt change. So for anyone else the place to change it is in the QtPlasmaC.prefs file under gui_options

[GUI_OPTIONS]
Mode = 1

So that fixed the arc ok but not the reverse voltage on the THC

Got the arc voltage fixed..... had the hypertherm=>thcad wiring backwards.....doh......thought I flipped it but must have put the wires back in the same place.... double doh.....

Either way that is working. Now I'm fighting the post processsor for Fusion 360.

Figured that out. Note to anyone else. If you are using "non engineering" aka artsy cut files make sure to disable the "merge circles" if you are getting arc errors when loading the program

Onto the ohmic touchoff!

jimmyrig wrote:

That was it! Seems like a bug in pnfconfig as I'm pretty sure I selected mode 1. Went ahead and edited it and it still wouldnt change. So for anyone else the place to change it is in the QtPlasmaC.prefs file under gui_options

Glad you got it going. I just checked PNCconf and it seems ok. When you say you edited it did you mean that you edited the .prefs file in the config directory.