Showstopper Plasma Cutter retrofit

Editing on mobile is crazy so I will post a small warning. If you have an HF start plasma, the HF is created between tip and electrode, you might still not believe me but anyways.
There could be some HF in the tip so keep that in mind.

I was experiencing problems again yesterday... I will be experimenting in this space next week.
In qtplasmac when you start getting problems and your half way through cutting a program you are just stuck.... you can't change many things without closing the program and reopening and reloading everything. For this reason I stuck it out and kept trying to cut with faults. (Torch wouldn't fire. The pulse function was working fine. Ohmic vaults were hovering on mid 23's ) . It didn't want to work even with ohmic sensing turned off. Eventuality I finished the last few cuts. Productivity was not good.

X axis problems...
Hey guys had a strange occurrence when I went to home my machine, One of the x motors started spinning and then had issues).
I suspected it was loose wiring. I took the motors off and one of the motors was not operating properly (It started and then changed directions the first time) Then both motors would spin and I manually moved the gantry to the sensors and 1 motor homed and the other motor just kept spinning.
I checked the continuity of each cable to the plug and everything seemed to be correct.
I checked all of the plugs in the control box and pushed everything in incase there was a loose plug.
When I was putting everything back together I decided to switch the motors across (I have been having inaccuracies of the motor on axis x2 when the gantry moves 2meters it is 0.5mm shorter than x1. Then when it goes back it is 1mm past the starting position.)
When I go to home now, both motors are now moving in a positive direction trying to home (and the x axis is showing that it is moving in a negative direction). I would think the motors are both identical and this would not happen?
I then tried to change the step scale in the ini file and reverse the positive to - and the negative to positive. It started to go in the right direction for about half a second then it changed directions and was going in the positive direction again. And the x axis was showing that it was going in a negative direction.
Any ideas for fualt finding this one?

This is awesome Rod !!!! Great work.

I'm just about to begin on my next cnc plasma so we may be in touch again as we move forward with this. 
 

RNJFAB wrote:

This is awesome Rod !!!! Great work.

I'm just about to begin on my next cnc plasma so we may be in touch again as we move forward with this. 

 

Thanks, drop in any time. You know where to find me 

Showstopper update:
We are slowly progressing and can operate sometimes, and other times we can not.
Homing issues are now fixed (in the end the homing proximity switches were showing 12.7 volts when not activated and 24v when activated and this was causing intermittant issues. Have since replaced them with a different brand they now show 0 when off and 24v when activated and the homing has been working perfectly).

Still having issues with ohmic sensing. Sometimes it works and sometimes I can't use it. When I first turn the machine on for the day the ohmic sensing can show as high as mid - high 23's and even go to 24v. But here is another problem that I am getting and I wonder if anyone else has experienced this one:
When ohmic probing isn't working normally I just turn it off and when it drives into the sheet the float switch will light up and then it will back off, pierce and cut.
This was working fine but now it isn't. It is driving into the plate the float switch light comes on and it will go until the breakaway is activated and it will give an error.
I unhooked the breakaway switches because I have a strange issue with them where sometimes the breakaway stays on after triggered. When testing with a multi meter it stays on (we are suspecting this is due to faulty proximity switches. New ones are on the way).
When the breakaway sensors are unhooked the torch drives into the plate, the float switch lights up but the motor just keeps driving into the plate and won't stop. So why does qtplasmac not know that it has hit the plate when it knows the float switch has been pushed. And how could this be an issue today when it was working yesterday?
Here is a video if it helps.
photos.app.goo.gl/FyoKbwEHJTWfGdXa9