Another plasma component...

Phill

Having created my own mini configuration management nightmare I have great sympathy for brave souls willing to take on the development of a new branch. Thank you.

I am still trying to figure out how to do probing tests (measure pierce or cut height). I really need to be confident of IHS before doing meaningful line tests.

John

Hi,

I have a little suggestion. Learned from my experience so far with linuxcnc plasma cutting.
Currently i use the halui.program-run pin for enable the (custom) thc component.
It has a few advantages :

1. Manual cutting opereration's become's easyer. ( you need less component code )
2. Setting the zero point is easyer. ( machine is only at travelheight when program is running )
3. The THC component has not to be turned on or off manually with button. Program run is on. Program stop is off.

Attached file's i use on the ethercat plasma machine at the moment. It has a full integrated thc and can set inverter power in the same way. Just for info. Maybe it can have usefull information. Some comment's of i/o pin's have to be cleaned up, some pin's and case name's can be renamed trough a period of testing. But it has a button restart wich does the backward move for 1 second and restarts. It's a nice component, but has to be cleaned up for publication. I can tell a lot of the component. It has a arc oke simulate button. ( nice option to simulate program with no arc okey signal ).

Phill

I had a try at using the probing test pin without much joy.

In my .ini file:
In the machanics.hal file:
The macro:
What happens when the macro is called is that the torch lowers to Z1.0 and then starts probing down until it contacts the plate. The Ohmic Probe LED on the GUI becomes active. The torch then moves .005" one way and then back .005" the other way. The Ohmic Probe LED sometimes briefly changes state back and forth. This happens at about 7hz by halscope. At the end of the 30 second delay the torch then raises to Z1.0.

The Z axis FERRORing is a major problem that I have got to find out what is happening. I now have the FERRORr and MIN-FERROR at rather large values compared to my working configuration. I have also changed MAX_VELOCITY and MAX_ACCELERATION to values much less than my working configuration while leaving OFFSET_AV_RATIO at .5. So someplace the Z is being asked to move fast than the hardware step gen can change values. This is a stepper system so the actual physical movement is not known to the controller. Even jogging faster than the slowest rates seems to have problem on the Z axis, again my other configuration doesn't do this.

John

Phill

Here is a better halscope screen shot.

John

Phill

I found another boneheaded error in my mechanics.hal file. This fixed the Z axis FERROR problems but did not fix the probing-test. What halscope data do you need?

John