Looking for the cheapest plasma cutter that will work with Mesa THCAD

If it only took 3 days, you got of lightly. You guys have no idea how much simpler it is today with the effort to simplify things and create an ISO that includes PREEMPT_RT. I had to patch and compile the Linux Kernel. That alone took 3 goes and it took half a day each time...

Your issue is nothing to do with building a plasma machine or indeed even Plasmac itself so sorry but its not a candidate for inclusion.

actually never mind it is now there so I am good

Section 4.3
If you get an error downloading the key it may be caused by being behind a firewall or a proxy server. In this case it may be worthwhile specifying port 80 rather than using the default of 11371:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net:80 --recv-key E0EE663E

Thank You
Calvin

Also I very much understand the build and install process has gotten far easier and I am very grateful for the effort people have put in to make those improvements, including yourself Rod

Thank You
Calvin

calvin.d wrote:

Also I very much understand the build and install process has gotten far easier and I am very grateful for the effort people have put in to make those improvements, including yourself Rod

Thank You
Calvin

Really Phill is the one who deserves the credit. I'm sure no other developer in the history of Linuxcnc has done as much as he has to simplify installation of the Plasmac system.

Food for thought, don't hook up the stepper driver where you put 24 v across the stepper output, it will fry the board... Wish they used different plugs on stepper drivers, 3 blown in one sec of stupidity... Lol

ok so i got everything set up, well almost everything. This last part has my brain being racked... the 7i96 GPIO pin and the ARC ok Voltage.... i measured the output voltage of the plasma (from the dedicated pin on the 55i plasma cutter) and i just cant get the light to go green. I did get the Torch On finally figured out (realized you have to enable to torch in the GUI... duh...) Also had the fun time figuring out the hit home on all the axis to get the dual y axis to register as just y instead of 1234... but now my final delema is getting the ark OK signal to read on the 7i96. anyone have any tips on this one? i think im supposed to put the limit threshold on the .ini file, but i dont think i have that set up right, thus why its not getting detected. is this it? or am i just being stupid again and its something easier that im just over seeing... (should i just get a relay to close the GPIO pin to ground from the arc ok voltage comming from the unit? im just tired and cold standing in the garage, so i will have to try again tomorrow. Any help would be apreciated.

So you are able to control the torch firing from the GUI?

If so it would be a wiring issue. Does your unit support arc OK signal? Or are you synthesizing it?

Arc OK on the machine should just be a simple output that will connect to your 7i96's input pin and field power.

So it looks like the ARC OK signal from the 55i is not a open close, but it's sending .04v (when checking for continuity it stays open) so I'm assuming the 7i96 is just looking for essentially a switch to close across the pins to signal that, if that's the case I'll just throw a Mosfet to take the tiny voltage and close the circuit (easier than me buying a relay that can close on that voltage) I'll give it a shot tomorrow. So just to double check, the GPIO pin then should be set to the N.O. signal and then it will read when it's closed. I think we just figured it out, I'll run a test after work tomorrow.

Normally ArcOK is simply a set of dry contacts (a relay) inside the plasma cutter. So you send field power down one ArcOK wire and then when the machine receives a valid arc, it closes the contacts. So if you attach a wire to the other ArcOK contact and attach it to a 7i96 input, you will have a valid signal.

rodw wrote:

Normally ArcOK is simply a set of dry contacts (a relay) inside the plasma cutter.

Rod is correct, its not so much a output signal from the plasma unit, rather a closed relay contact that allows the input signal to close. Hypertherm calls it Transfer Signal.