Another plasma component...

phillc54 wrote:

I like your idea of a simulated path pin.

This may not need a new pin in the component. If you add a new GUI button "torch enable", you can and2 that with motion.spindle-on and use the output from the and2 to turn on the torch relay output.

I've just moved my plasma table to a new building and for some reason, its not seeing any Wifi SSID's otherwise I'd be playing with this.

I was looking at all of the space left on the config tab and thought it would be a great place to have some fields populated from an SQL table to select cutting chart parameters. I came up with a list of about 8 tables to do this correctly. eg, select machine, select metric/Imperial units, select material type (steel, stainless aluminium), select material thickness (based on metric/imperial), select gas. I did nut out the fields required for each table. When i get some time, I'll see if I can build the database for a Hypertherm 45xp.

Tommy,

Are you saying that if you manually trigger a torch, it enables the ArcOn signal and if that is enabled when an attempt is made to start cutting, the TOMA_THC does not commence the cut?

Guys

This is really cool. I wish this was around two years ago. I will take a close look at his in the coming week so I can understand where others are going. Most of my configuration (right or wrong) is configured so that all of the torch and THC functions are interlocked to the ArcOK or OK to Move signals from the plasma power supply. I must say that I never have a problem related to the torch failing to fire that isn't related to IHS. At the present time I do have a problem every 5 to 7 sheets that I cut with the torch going out for about one or two cut path segments and then re starting without operator intervention. This problem appears to be totally random at this time. I actually suspect it is related to the TD power supply and how I hacked (hardware) the machine torch interface so it would work reliably with the HT Finecut consumables.

John

I mentioned I was working on a python SQL database. Maybe it could be incorporated into Phil's config.

This python script initialises a database with around 9 tables in it and loads a metric cut chart for mild steel and the Hypertherm 45xp.


For each material thickness, there are two cut chart entries for each one. One at Best Quality and the other at Production quality per the Hypertherm cutchart in the manual. Many of the database tables are one offs and probably don't need ongoing modification

Note that the database supports metric and imperial cutcharts but I've only entered a metric cut chart for now.

Run it from the command prompt.
This python script acesses the database and prints a crude cut chart (more like a data dump for each row in the table). It does lots of joins to pull all of the data together.


Run it from the command prompt.
Note the last line of the SELECT statement includes a WHERE clause to filter out either best quality settings or use production quality settings.

I was kinda hoping that somebody might like to incorporate this into the GUI. I envisaged there would be a drop down to select a machine, material, cut quality and the like so that the database could populate the cut parameters to make this a truly plug and play interface. I can code the data structures and populate the database but man, I need to write a file import routine as hardcoding the data really sucked to build the cutchart! Plus I'm not so good at coding the GUI stuff.

Anyway, please give some feedback on these scripts and let me know if this idea is worth adopting. If its got support, I'll work on a CSV cutchart import routine to get away from the hardcoded inset statements.