Arc OK delay? Or Post Time delay?

Hey all, I just completed the table assemby, and initial test cuts. All is fine. So I downloaded a more complex cut from Fireshare - christmas trees. I’m getting the cleanest cuts ever coming from hand held cutting experiences only. Very happy. But I find the Post Time delay on my Best Arc BTC800XP is causing stops (potential missfire) when running the program. I can wait until my Post Delay time (3sec) is up and restart and finish the cuts overall. But I seek a way to tell crossfire that my torch needs 3 seconds to cool down before starting the next pierce/cut sequence. Google AI has interesting info, but nothing helpful. Appreciate the help of this great forum of users (RI=real intelegence :slight_smile:

Are you using a CAM program like SheetCAM, or just cutting the gcode file you downloaded from Fireshare?

Just the tap file from the download. Im ramping up on Fusion.

I think you’re stuck unless you’re willing to add the pause at the end of each cut manually. Not that bad to do if you only have a few contours, but maybe a lot harder to deal with if you’re talking about 100 cuts to add pauses to.

@Tobias Welcome to The forum.

I was looking at the manual.

In the CPC port there are pins for “CNC plug-in detection” I’m wondering if these pins will remove that delay or enable the torch to fire during the delay? It doesn’t say it directly in the manual but I can see that being one reason to have the CNC detection pins.

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Also looking in the manual it appears that they might be copy and pasting some text out of other manufacturers manual and not proofreading before publishing. :joy: :joy:

Ha! Good catch. I looked at those connections but expected to see an input for those in the Firecontrol so it could read when the torch is ready.

Thanks. I am now dangerous with cut and paste in a gcode text editor. I put G4 P3.1 before every M3 to cause a 3.1 second delay before the next cut. Trying it soon.

It works. Thanks everyone. Next I’ll learn how to do this in Fusion or maybe write Bestarc a nice email asking for their experiences and recommendations.

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I’ve seen a few YouTubers review the Bestarc machines and have never heard of this issue.

Sheetcam will let you add a pause after each cut loop. Fusion does not have that function yet.

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I’m a fan of SheetCAM if you can swing paying for it into your budget. It works pretty well, and I can go from a dxf to a gcode file in less than a minute if it’s a material I have in the cut table and it doesn’t require any fancy tweaks to get the part to run like I want it to (things like if I need to be picky about pierce point placement).

If you’re willing to trade a little cash for convenience, it’s worth looking into.

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I do trade cash for convenience. Thank you. But it seems I need to get a Windows system to run it. Maybe in the future.

I’m running those channels down now. Thank you. I did see one channel where the crossfire pro was pausing 3 seconds after every cut. Hope they reply with how they did it.

As I said earlier, Sheetcam allows you to set a pause after each cut loop in the tool settings. You can easily set a 3 or 4 second pause after each cut, without needing to modify the the code.

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I’m not current on Apple computers, but can’t you use virtualization software that would allow you to run Windows programs?

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Yes. I have enough experience with those, although years ago, to know I don’t want that complexity in my life right now. I’ll wait to see if anyone else has fixed the problem another way before I decide to go that route. Thanks so much for the ideas.

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A follow up to finally close this out and call it solved.

  1. I was able to continue using the Bestarc BTC800XP as long as I inserted 3 second delays in the gcode after each M5 (torch off). Bestarc support sent a new control board but that did not change this symptom.
  2. I purchased a Hypertherm 45 Sync to prove the problem was not in my environment or with my performance. It worked as expected, no errors when trying to fire the torch inside of 3 seconds between loops. It has a ~30 second post purge airflow after the entire program is done. Again as expected.

Summary: the Bestarc is not truly set up for plug and play CNC. You have to build delays into the code to make it work and then you extend your cut time by 3 seconds per loop. That can add up but not such a big deal in the end. Only issue is nobody before seemed to run into this. I checked with all the you tubers and posts here on this forum. If you know of anyone without this issue on this model, please reply. Going forward, I’ll keep the Bestarc 80a plasma cutter on my freehand station and the Hyperthem 45 Sync on the CNC table.

An upside to this story is I now have some experience modifying gcode and I understand the CNC world much better. Also learned more about CAM in Fusion 360 and was able to set up custom files to insert the delays for me. Now, off to my goal of cutting some awesome Christmas gifts (from @TinWhisperer ) via FireShare.

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Did you ever ask about the function of the C&C detection pins when you were talking to support?

Still curious of the function of this.

Congratulations you now own a Cadillac!

Good luck with those projects. If you need the original Fusion F3D files let me know I’ll send them over to you. I think one of the original fire share Christmas projects I posted had an issue but if you read in the comments there’s a link that refers you back to the forum for a download that has corrections. Currently the poster of a Fireshare project you’re not able to edit Fireshare project after the fact. I think a lot of us been hoping for Fireshare improvements but it’s been back burnered apparently.

It’s all good news make sure you come back and post your projects.

I would love DXF files, just to learn. One challenge I am finding now is it is difficult to find sources of some basic classic shapes: golden triangle, and s curve, etc. You have some nice shapes in one of those ornament .nc files.
My wife loves these files you have shared. Thank you.

Tobisas

I believe I posted a DXF with most of my projects on fire share. If there’s a specific one that’s missing it let me know and I can send it over to you.

TinWhisperer | FireShare | Langmuir Systems

Most of these are mashups from things I found on the Internet.

I did live stream remixing most of these projects back in the day.

You and your wife are welcome. hopefully you get some made and enjoy them. Please post some when you do