Interference From Plasma Cutter Freezing FireControl

Prime Weld and Langmuir are SUPER with customer support, so too is George! … Hat’s off to them! :grinning:

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Concur. PW and LS both great to work with… Huge kudos for awesome customer support!

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@langmuir-daniel So I got the new PrimeWeld Cut 60 delivered Monday. Was just able to hook it up and try it out today. Bottom line is I’m getting the same exact response from the new Cut 60.

Since #1 worked fine at the end of May, after ferrite chokes put in place for noise issue, then no operations until about a month ago when I updated FireControl to Ver 20.4.
After troubleshooting we figured #1 Cut 60 had a bad Voltage Dividing Board, so swap it out for a new one. Same issue.

I realize that with the option of just one cutter on hand, going the raw voltage route made sense. But with a new cutter on hand I think its reasonable to try divided voltage route. And it having the same exact issue now has my spidey senses tingling. Mainly because of the good cutting I was having at the end of May with the first Cut 60. Seems to me that the thing that changed --the new variable-- was the introduction of the 20.4 FireControl software.

Here’s a video of straight line test cuts with the new PrimeWeld Cut 60. Spoiler alert, it looks pretty much the same as with the last cutter!

FireControl doesnt actually change anything about how the THC works- that is controlled exclusively by the THC firmware. The fact that you are seeing 0 volts while cutting tells me that the polarity is somehow wrong on the incoming voltage just like it was on the other Primweld. You proved this as well with the 1.5 volt battery test which showed the THC is working as intended.

I really believe that if you wire this to raw it will work perfectly.

@langmuir-daniel Ok, I call “uncle!”

Again, only due to having a new machine on hand I tried the CPC route again. As per above: no joy.

So wired up machine #1 for raw voltage: black banana plug wire to electrode stud and red banana plug wire to work clamp. There is a statement in the guide to not have continuity between black banana plug and plasma torch, which I did (vs should have continuity between red banana plug and clamp, which I did also), but reviewing other’s raw voltage wiring configurations on this forum I decided to test it out… worked a treat!

First cut was a 15" straight cut with THC on… it completed without an Arc Voltage Lost error. I then went for the gusto and recut my panel. Cut it all, except about 2/3rds around the perimeter it lost arc voltage. Still, after 6-7 minutes of constant cutting and then cutting a LOT of the perimeter, I’m calling it a success. Especially since it cut the remaining third of the perimeter in one shot.

Guess I’m a RAW convert. Thanks again!

Thats good to hear- when it is cutting what voltage are you seeing in FireControl? It is possible and probably likely that if you are getting a good stable voltage reading that the arc was lost due to other reasons.

Hi @langmuir-daniel at which stage did Langmuir start doing the fix in house ? My order was #15081 shipped on 13 Aug 2020. Interested to know if my machine would have had this mod done ?

probably be easier to just take off the cover on the control box and look to see if it was done or not?

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Agree it is very easy to remove the cover but if Langmuir knew any order from say #1500 have had the mod completed saves a lot of people removing their covers or wondering if theirs has been done already.

Don’t you have to remove the cover to mount it to the table anyway? And to install THC module?

yes. And yes. :slight_smile:

How does one determine the batch number?

So I ordered and received a Primeweld Cut60, then ordered the pro table, supposed to ship this month. What should I do, cancel the pro table??? Have you worked with Primeweld to try and isolate the issue??? Will I still have support using the Cut60???

They said they’ll keep trying to support existing customers & you ordered your table and had you Cut60 before they made the support change so you’re probably supported. Besides that, they looking at 25% that have issues they are not consistently able to resolve so you have a 3 out of 4 chance of not having any problem at all. There are a bunch of Cut60 folks who have dodged whatever magic bullet that makes them interfere with the electronics of the Crossfire.

The reported interference thing with the CUT60 really is bothering me. I own a Crossfire and a CUT60 and it’s one year now, and I do not presently have that issue. As an engineer, this is an issue I would love to delve into but I have been unable to to reproduce it in my shop. Granted early in the game I would get interference, but that was successfully tracked-down to a ground-loop fault and was corrected by isolating the PC and monitor (eliminating the ground). I built my own controller when I did my DIY THC / Z-axis and initially got interference, lots of it, but that was on me since I opted to use a fiberglass (non shielding) enclosure. That situation was resolved by lining critical areas of the inside of the box and around the controller board with brass sheet to form a Faraday shield. Except for those instances, my system has been working fine (Mach3).
This weekend, I am planning to do some EMI sniffing with some instrumentation and also try to replicate the issues others are having and see if I can get any nearer to the root of the issue. I also encourage the technically minded folk out there to pursue a solution to this as well. But as it stands here in the shop, I love my Plasma table and my CUT60 and they both are used commercially daily.

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Good luck. Another person, who is very active and helpful in the FB group, are the poster children for these issues. My machine will fail 15 times straight, then run a program or at most two successively, then go right back to ruining steel. Absolutely crippling.

…I sooooo hate tearing into a system that works perfectly!!! :grimacing: :zap::zap::zap::zap::zap::zap:

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Short Story:
As Chief Engineer at a Korean consumer electronics plant here, many moons ago. A new model of 20" TV (CRT type) was introduced and we were assembling and shipping >250 units per day throughout the Caribbean. Phone rang in my office and and it was the chairman “Got a complaint from a customer, not far from the plant, that his new TV in his bedroom suddenly came on, on it’s own at 1:15am, and subsequently caught fire and burned his bedroom down, taking with it, all his vital documents (passport, etc.), take care of it!” …not friggin’ good!!! :grimacing::zap:
I responded immediately and we looked into it, I told the customer we’ll take care of him, bedroom, documents and all …we took the unit with us.
Next day, another call, same report and while attending, yet another call… WTF??? :flushed:
I immediately ordered a recall of all that product, taking a heap of flack from the top brass, but I was adamant, it was the right thing to do. We set-up a makeshift lab outside the factory and decided to simulate the reported fault on 50 units (allunits plugged in, and not turned on, CCTV recording). Sure enough on one unit, two days later, it came on and lit-up like a roman candle! …lots of troubleshooting and diagnostics ensued with my team.
Long story short:
Turns out the wrong thermal paste was used for a power transistor in the high voltage circuit (sure looked and smelled like thermal compound). This circuit also doubled as the switching power supply for the entire unit. The paste would break-down, power-up the unit, short-out and light-up! Two Korean engineers came down to confirm our findings (they drink a lot of beer). All units were recalled and the issues corrected, but most importantly, no one got hurt and the company took care of the affected customers 100% …a great write-up on the news ensued and sales shot up!

Sometimes, the root cause can be so simple, yet so well concealed!:nerd_face:

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Seeing that you are experiencing a repeatable fault, would you mind working with me trying a couple ideas (some may seem simple and silly, but it’s EMI were trying to track down) as they pop-up, in an effort to get to a solution?

First thing I’m trying to identify is the EMI entry point and I can only think of the following for now:

  1. Case to case propagation
    a) CUT60 to Control Cabinet
    i) Power supply
    ii) Motion control board
    iii) Stepper drivers
    b) CUT60 to PC/Laptop
    c) CUT 60 to Monitor
  2. Via USB cable
  3. Common ground (ground loops)
  4. THC voltage sense cabling
  5. Power Line EMI contamination
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Actually, @Cletus I’m banishing my Primeweld the moment the brown truck shows up this afternoon. I think I’ll be shipping it to LS for further forensics. Maybe you can join forces with them? With a business idea that’s 13 months behind due to a useless CNC, plus two 4 year olds and two parents in their late 80s in my care, I just don’t have energy to look back.

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