As mentioned above, excessively long delay could cause the torch to burn out before moving.
Otherwise, a slightly longer than necessary delay will just make a larger pierce hole. This isn’t an issue on cuts where you can use a lead in, so the pierce is in the waste material.
On single line cuts, where there is no lead in, you want the delay as short as possible to minimize the size of the pierce hole.
I think I may have just connected the dots. So pierce delay is the time before it starts moving after firing and NOT the time it delays before firing?
Yes. Torch fires, wait for delay, lower to cut height and then move.
The delay allows time for the plasma to pierce through the metal, before moving.
If the torch has not fired by the time it starts moving in an X or Y direction, FireControl will throw an error and declare “Torch moved before voltage was sensed.”
It can start moving in the Z direction (pierce height to cutting height) before the torch fires and not trigger that alarm. Ideally, the z movement is synchronized with the firing of the torch.