Another plasma component...

So on an M3, an air ram shoots the pen down and turns on the engraver airflow and allows marking and engraving operations and enough noise to wake the dead!

So how do you tell the air scribe to operate instead of the plasma?
I guess you still need to prove somehow as well.
Now I am curious.
Gosh it's taking me a long time to type this, I am down at the coast and using my phone (horrible thing)

Edit: PROBE

Well from the docs, I think plasma would become M3 $0 and air scribe would be M3 $1.
The pin spindle.1.on would fire some air solenoids
Andy is the one who wrote it.

linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/gcode/m-code.html#mcode:m3-m4-m5

And you would have to define a plasma tool and an engraver tool in the tool table with the offsets.
In plasmac style, you might have to build a dwell into it to allow the air ram to travel down before setting spindle.1.at speed. I have not played with it, but I thought there might need to be an adjustable stop to limit the height above the material to reduce this dwell.

Just explaining my CAD file for a moment as it might be hard to see. The air ram I have has a threaded end on the cylinder so it screws into a bracket affixed to the backing plate. The HGR15 carriage is also attached to the same backing plate. The pen is held in a bracket attached to the end of the HGR15 which also accepts the air ram so when it fires, the ram shoots down instantaneously. The air ram air pressure determines how much down force is applied. The engraver probably runs at a more normal 90pis and just vibrates like crazy. So there is still no Z axis movement required.

This is the air ram that moved the scribe up and down, Just a Pneumatic z axis,



The Chicago Pneumatic scribe mounted to a aluminum mounting plate.



All of the hardware to make it work, Oiler first then pressure regulators and solenoids.

Phill,

A bit of a issue I have come across,

When I am cutting out holes with the THC turned off, At the end of the hole when the torch is cutting into the overcut position, The Z axis will raise up signficantly at the end of cut,

This is causing some of my centers of the holes to not be cut through as the torch lifts before it cuts the left over material away.

I have only noticed it on thicker sheets 20mm thicker and up.

Any idea why the torch is moving upwards?

So it is lifting up before the torch is turned off?