Mostly Working

Hello

Well I did some test cutting with my LinuxCNC controller for plasma cutting over the weekend. A quick video is here:



Sorry I don't know how to rotate the video so just lay on your side to watch. This is cutting 14ga (1.75mm) HR steel over water. For those of you that have not been following this saga I am running under the external offsets branch but not in the way that everyone envisions. I am using Gmoccapy as the GUI running under LMDE-2 with a non standard realtime kernel. This is run on an old Dell Optiplex 745 with a Core Duo 3Ghz processor. The interface electronics are a Mesa 7I76E and THCad 10V. I have since reworked the probing to make it more robust. I use ohmic plate sensing with a floating head switch as a backup/failsafe. The table is a much modified TM2. The Z axis mechanics are Zylotek with a 500oz/in stepper. For the moment everything is driven with a Gecko G540 running at 48vdc. The plasma power supply is a Thermal Dynamics A-60 with a Hypertherm Duramax torch using Finecut consumables. In the video I am using "disposable" high mileage ( +2500 pierces) consumables. While this is still not ready for production work or publishing of the configuration I did manage to cut a whole sheet of moderately difficult parts with only having to resort to heroic measures ( die grinder and cutting disk) to salvage one part. Some of the more more notable features are being able to select on the GUI between using the tool library cut parameter from the my SheetCam tool library or from the GUI set values at run time. I have been through 4 major revisions of SheetCam PPs to get to this point and I see a fifth in the very near future. Oh, and yes the cut quality is acceptable but I am looking for better, a new set of consumables will certainly help.

This still is really a work in progress. Now that that I have looked things over and realized all the crude patches and hacks I have done to make this work so far I think that I need to go back and start from scratch and make some coherent and maintainable code before I publish the configuration.

John

Great work John! Good to see it in motion.

islander261 wrote:

Hello

Well I did some test cutting with my LinuxCNC controller for plasma cutting over the weekend. A quick video is here:



Sorry I don't know how to rotate the video so just lay on your side to watch. This is cutting 14ga (1.75mm) HR steel over water. For those of you that have not been following this saga I am running under the external offsets branch but not in the way that everyone envisions. I am using Gmoccapy as the GUI running under LMDE-2 with a non standard realtime kernel. This is run on an old Dell Optiplex 745 with a Core Duo 3Ghz processor. The interface electronics are a Mesa 7I76E and THCad 10V. I have since reworked the probing to make it more robust. I use ohmic plate sensing with a floating head switch as a backup/failsafe. The table is a much modified TM2. The Z axis mechanics are Zylotek with a 500oz/in stepper. For the moment everything is driven with a Gecko G540 running at 48vdc. The plasma power supply is a Thermal Dynamics A-60 with a Hypertherm Duramax torch using Finecut consumables. In the video I am using "disposable" high mileage ( +2500 pierces) consumables. While this is still not ready for production work or publishing of the configuration I did manage to cut a whole sheet of moderately difficult parts with only having to resort to heroic measures ( die grinder and cutting disk) to salvage one part. Some of the more more notable features are being able to select on the GUI between using the tool library cut parameter from the my SheetCam tool library or from the GUI set values at run time. I have been through 4 major revisions of SheetCam PPs to get to this point and I see a fifth in the very near future. Oh, and yes the cut quality is acceptable but I am looking for better, a new set of consumables will certainly help.

This still is really a work in progress. Now that that I have looked things over and realized all the crude patches and hacks I have done to make this work so far I think that I need to go back and start from scratch and make some coherent and maintainable code before I publish the configuration.

John

What cards are you using for THC?

Bevins, As he stated, John is using a Mesa 7i76e and a Mesa THCAD-10.