Now that we live in a world with single piece consumable cartridges ( hypertherms fine and standard cut cartridges ) I am thinking a usefull mod to firecontrol would be to have two, independant, selectable pierce count and run time monitors.
Switching back and forth between cartridges the way I do, becomes very difficult at best to keep track of cartridge useage with only one.
Any thoughts?
Doesn’t the sync cartridge keep track of that? I was thinking they do. I get it it would be interesting.
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Sync does keep track of that, and will even have a list of failed pierces.
I remember my friend sending me screenshots showing me 1,900 or 2,300 pierces per cartridge from his 65Sync. He’d run that sucker some 5-6 days a week for over a year straight without issue.
If I recall, it also has arc time as well.
Being an XP user myself, I just write on blue tape and keep it with my consumable set for switching from finecut to mechanized and back.
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You’re right, the sync cartridge does keep track, but the only way to access the info is with a cartridge reader and a cell phone. Viable work arounds for sure, but it would be so much nicer to have it on the control panel, in realtime right in plain sight!
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Maybe implement a stand-alone setup, thinking Arduino.
Tap it into the trigger firing pins to count pierces and run-time with the ability to switch between A and B (each representing a different cartridge).
Honestly, it sounds like a complicated solution to a problem that doesn’t exist especially when phones are so easy to use and fast to deploy.
There’s a reason why Hypertherm’s option exists.
Use it, you already have it.
Since there already is a pierce count and run time indicator on the control panel, I didn’t think it would be too difficult for them to add another, that can be selected the same way the motor speeds are selected.
Thought it would be a nice improvement, thats all.
I came here to request this same feature. Even a way to manually enter the numbers would be better than nothing. Then you could sharpie them on the cartridge when you take it out and type it in when you put it back in.
My thoughts exactly. Having to zero the counter each time a cartridge is swapped then add up the numbers to keep track seems very cumbersome. It would be so much nicer to have a running total. It is not as if there is nothing else to keep track of with this process.