Another plasma component...

Phill

I changed plasmac.skip-ihs-type to a bit type and did a dry run using the 30/04/19 posting and it looked like it worked correctly.

Yes, you are correct, for my install plasmac.skip-ihs-type == THC enable == 1 == skip from end of cut will let me get rid of an extra NOT component. Please just keep me posted about changes so I can fix my .hal files.

I will be busy with meetings and some more design work in the morning and early afternoon tomorrow so I may not get to live cutting until Sunday. Lawn and packing up work in afternoon and off island market all day on Saturday.

John

Tool table revisited:

I don't know why we did not think of this before. What if there was only one entry in the tooltable (T1) and it was updated whenever a drop down selection was made in Plasmac.

If you wanted to set your own tool in gcode, then you could use T2 and above.

Would that work?

I am really struggling here. I have spent a full day going over my files, I have compared my .ini with the sim .ini. In kdiff3. I have re-cloned and started fresh a number of times.

My gmoccappy sim runs fine, all the details in plasma config tab, and plasma run tab are populated, in my live environment all the boxes are blank and will not save any input, the spin buttons are also not doing anything. The only difference between the sim and live environment are the machine.hal and darrens_plasma.ini. I can see the settings populated in the plasmac config file, its just as though it not being read in.
The terminal output shows errors relating to files missing that I can see are there, missing python components that are installed etc, the same errors are evident when running the sim or live environments.
I also see errors relating to pins already being assigned, having done searches on plasmac and machine hal files I cannot see any duplicates.

I also have no gcode program loaded at startup, looking in the ini I believe it should load the squares program.

I am sure I must be missing something very basic here as the pc is a fresh build, and the plasmac is the latest release. I have uploaded my current files in the hope someone can see where I am going wrong.

Darren

Dee, can you post up your plasmac.hal file. YOu are doubling up on these signals SO I am guessing that they are duplicated

phillc54 wrote:

Tool Handling, episode next

Don't use an internal LinuxCNC tool table at all.
Use the materials file with an unlimited number of 'tools'
When the tool is loaded set a global named parameter (say #<_kerf_width>)
Use G41.1 and G42.1 for cutter compensation (G41.1 D#<_kerf_width>)

Would that work for anyone...

If this is the way to go then it would be better necessary to change the format of the materials file from:
..
to:

[TOOL_NUMBER_112]
NAME               = Mild Steel 12mm
KERF_WIDTH         = 1.2 
THC                = 1
PIERCE_DELAY       = 0.6
PIERCE_HEIGHT      = 3.8
PUDDLE_JUMP_HEIGHT = 0
PUDDLE_JUMP_DELAY  = 0
CUT_HEIGHT         = 1.5
CUT_SPEED          = 540
CUT_AMPS           = 45
CUT_VOLTS          = 140

This would mean when selecting something manually you would need to do it by tool number.
It may even be better to ditch the material name and call it plasmac_tool.tbl or similar.
I have include THC enable/disable as it is not much more work to integrate that into the other changes.

I do have a working proof of concept with 112 tools so far but there is quite a bit more work to do to get it to a finished state.

Cheers, Phill.

Sorry I missed this. But its kinda like I suggested after your post. This keeps plasmac the master of everything. One final request.

Say I had a tool in Sheetcam for 12mm mild steel. I really only need to store one number in the sheetcam toolset which is the plasmac tool number. So if I could do a M67/M68 to set one of the analog pins to the tool number (eg 112 in the example), could plasmac then see this and retrieve the appropriate cut chart? eg ongetThat would be pretty awesome!

Also great to hear there is a THC disable pin coming.

Hi Rod

I won’t be in the workshop until tomorrow to get the file, but I am using the standard plasmac hal file from the clone with the only change being a joint 3 entry that I change to joint 2 as I have an xyz rather than xyyz machine.

Darren

Dee, Have a good look in both your hal and plasmac.hal for those two pins as there is a duplicate to resolve and you'll be all good!

Hi Rod

Midnight here but I have driven down to the workshop as I need to get this working.

Please see attached plasmac.hal.

Darren