Under 40A? That’s the 100% duty cycle amperage - if you go over 40A, its duty cycle is less than 100%.
I only run it at 35a, this is only 14ga mild steel
Sounds like the same issue I have once in a while that has ruined a lot of sheets of metal. Pull out the USB cable that connects to your computer where it connects to the controller on the crossfire black box and plug it back in then pull the signal cable for the torch on/off from the black box and plug it back in. Should fix it. I don’t know if it’s cheap cables or poor connectors on the controller. Very frustrating on an expensive thick plate when it f*#+s it up like that.
I should mention when mine messes up like this it’s because the pierce is delayed and it starts on the tool path then fires the torch late.
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Interesting, wouldn’t that cause this on all cuts though? I made some design and parameter changes to the design late last night. I’m going to try to cut another one this evening and see if what I did fixes it. If so I’ll update with what I did to fix it for anyone experiencing the same issues.
I found that to be the case with @ctgolfer once. It looked like it wasn’t finishing the cut when in reality it wasn’t managing the initial pierce and lead-in so it would start with a delayed firing and pierce after it had already begun the cut. The lead-out was actually correct.
I believe the solution we found for him was to change Mach 3 to milliseconds due to the bug handling (sub)seconds.
Okay, if that’s the case, why/how is it only doing it on some of the cuts and not all of them if I’m using the same settings for the entire piece? (Not being a smartass just trying to understand)
For me it was because some areas of the steel was the right distance to pierce for some and not others, James changed it to milliseconds so it has long enough to pierce all the time. I use a Miller and I have to use drag shields so the slightest bit of warp in the piece would mess it up. Jamesdhatch cured my problems.
I have mine set to .5 sec delay right now. What would you suggest?
Set 1 second or change mach 3 to use milliseconds and set that to 500 instead. so it turns out this is happening at the beginning of the cuts ?
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I was watching it, and it definitely didn’t appear to be doing it at the beginning. It was stopping short from what I was seeing. I’ve adjusted this design. I have others that do it as well. I’ll cut one of them in the AM and try to get a video of it
I can say for sure that mine is a cable issue. I run and re-run the cut file. Close Mach 3 and reload and it will still mess up the pierce. If I pull the cable and re plug it the problem is fixed.
I found your article on changing the mach3 setting @jamesdhatch I’ll give it a shot. If this is the fix to this headache I owe you a drink!
It’s happening at the ends of the cuts for sure. I made all of the suggested changes. It’s now doing it in different places and at the last place it’s still doing it but it’s closer to finishing the cutout. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.
I guess the question that need to be answered is if the torch fire command from mach3 is still on at the end of the cut. If torch fire is on then and the cut is ending before its finished the path then the problem is mechanical, if its turning the torch off too soon then It’s in the software somehow.
It’s turning it off too soon, I just can’t figure out why.
So mach3 is turning the torch off too soon?
So I guess the next thing we need to nail down is:
Do the yellow “fire” lights turn off in Mach3 before the end of the cut indicating if it is the torch or the software.
That will be hard to see.
May not make you feel much better but it is getting tracked down.
I haven’t got time at the moment to research what to look for. But it might be good if you looked at the tap file directly and see where the torch off command comes in. Are you sure that in the simulation your yellow cut lines go all the way to the end like they should?
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