Some thoughts and some findings using PlasmaC

A before and after of the torch on at pierce height fix, these were done with a 0.2 pierce delay. X/Y motion now starts when the pierce delay times out rather than wait until the torch gets back down to cut height.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

Looks much better, when can i give it a run?
Thank you.

tommylight wrote: Looks much better, when can i give it a run?
Thank you.

That's a question only you can answer; she's live now! Seems to work well from what I saw. Seems like it solved a lot of the joint following issues we were seeing as well.

I didn't get to do a ton of testing on it, but preliminary results were very encouraging.

I did play a bit with it today, i is definitely much, much better, so more testing is on order for tomorrow.
I had everything at default regarding debouncing and some other stuff and old consumables and on most fails it was the plasma source that failed to start the arc, but out of 100 starts it failed about 15 times while before it was 2 or 3 times per pierce after the first one.
Warning:
Do not take any of this as a reference to anything, i am using a very old Cebora plasma source with a 12M long torch cable, plasma is in the workshop while the machine is outside sitting on stilts (temporarily = yeah riteee ), very long cables going from the machine to the plasma source, computer and monitor are also outside in the cold, etc, etc, .
The reason for all this is to make it work with worst case conditions and iron out small wrinkles so when using proper stuff it never fails.

Oh goodie, where do i start ?
Well the torch on does work properly and had a huge impact on getting much less failed arcs , but also shed some light on proper setting of the minimum and maximum voltage for arcok when using mode 0 (arcok generated from the THCAD voltage), namely, setting narrow limits will result in lost arcok signal very often, so here are some tips:
--set the min voltage to 80 to 90V as that will ensure loosing the arcok if by any chance the torch gets very close to the material, this will prevent the older plasma sources from overloading,
--set the max voltage to 180 to 200V, make some quick tests by using F9 on some frequently used scrap material, lower that voltage until you get arc lost on at least 10 pierces, then set the voltage some 20V above that. This will prevent from torch moving to far from material if it runs over scrap or already cut parts, cutting the arcok and saving the material from going to the bin.
After using the arcok from the plasma source ( the reed switch mod found here at the very bottom linuxcnc.org/docs/2.8/html/plasma/plasmac-user-guide.html ), everything works perfectly, no misfires, no arc lost, just plain perfection.
## For anyone doing more than hobby cutting, please take the time to study and implement the above linked solution with a reed switch for ARCOK signal, it will save a lot of time in the long run> That is if the plasma source does not already have it.##
Thank you all.

Had a strange issue today that i could not reproduce any more, namely the probe height/speed where ignored for over 50 probes and after stopping with ESC and resuming with "run from here" it did work properly for some 300 more probes.
Beside that, it was a pleasure working and watching the machine work, no wonder my eyes are hurting !
More cutting tomorrow hunting gremlins ...
To make this topic happier, here are some of the parts cut today: