For those that have a Powermax45 XP, and do not have a pendant, CPC port, etc., here is how you can wire it internally. I saw some instructions for the 30 XP, but the 45 XP looks to be quite different, although the wire colors are the same.
Obviously, remove all power to the machine before beginning any work.
- Remove the bottom two screws on each end of the machine. They are a T15 Torx.
- Remove top two screws from each end of handle. These are #2 phillips.
- Pull the front cover forward, and the rear cover backward, to spread them far enough to remove the handle. Once handle is out, pull metal cover off to expose internal parts of the machine. Note that this cover is also within channels of the front an rear covers, so you may have to spread them further.
- Find the wires coming out of the rear side of the port where the torch attaches.
- Follow the small colored wires and harness coming from the port, to the opposite side of the machine. They attach to the PC board via a plug near the top. Note there is a flexible plastic shield that may be in your way, but can be flexed out of the way.
- The wires to trigger the torch are violet and orange. (I used a multi-meter to verify that these were indeed the trigger wires). Apply the splice taps included with your machine to each of your wires. There was enough extra wire available in the harness, to partially pull it out of the machine to do this. I used the violet splices as the wires are pretty small.
- Attach the trigger harness wire to the taps.
- Route trigger harness through machine, taking care not to interfere with anything. I routed them behind the PC board, and over the middle plane separator through one of the spare wire routing slots, then toward the rear of the machine where the filter is.
- Route the wires outside the machine as you wish. I chose to remove the filter, and pass them through the extra space around the filter, so no drilling was needed. There are no sharp edges to worry about.
- Next, tuck everything back in place if it was moved, and reinstall top cover, handle, handle screws, and bottom screws.
- Repower the plasma cutter, attach the torch to your table, attach the trigger wire to the control box when ready, and verify that it fires via the manual control option in Mach 3.
- For safety, when the machine is not connected to the table, I place a rubber vacuum cap over the end of the trigger wire.
Hopefully this helps someone out. Everything works for me with this setup, and I didn’t have to spend anything on additional parts for the cutter, or anything else.