Thanks for all your help I appreciate it.
I think im having a very similar issue.
I’ll have to go back tonight and figure out my full issue and report back.
But from what I csn remember from the weekend;
Kept getting “pierce delay” alarms. Changed from no delay to major delay with no difference. New consumables, everything.
So i unplugged EVERYTHING external and plugged it back in. Still pierce delay issue but then it quit firing all together. I got the air to trigger but no fire.
I think at first I had no trigger fire then I did all of a sudden.
Restarted everything and it cut 2 simple parts out then the 3rd it quit firing again so I said “fu€k you table!” And quit for the night lol.
I will do all these steps tonight and see what I come up with.
(First post on the forum. Seems like a good comunity!)
As I said on Facebook, it seems like this is a plasma cutter related problem. Perhaps George @mechanic416 could be of some assistance with your issue.
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Cutter fires by trigger and by firecontrol.
I fired it up just now after sitting all night and it made the first 2 cuts just fine then the 3rd it kept raising the torch from cut height to about 1" high, while cutting.
Started that same program again snd it cut all the way thru it except it looked like shit, wasn’t even shaped the same.
Then started a different part and it made one clean cut then didn’t fire on the 2nd pierce.
Thought it may be the file so went to a 3rd part
Made the first cut perfect then didn’t fire on the 2nd pierce again…
Took the control box apart and everything was plugged in snug still. Pulled the relay I think and it looked fine. The. Pulled the thc and put it back in.
I ordered a few parts. One being a new replay and that has me back up and running again. I felt the cost was super reasonable to replace as well.
My guess is consumables are trashed. How are you drying your air? Moisture will destroy consumable fast. Where is your ground clamp on metal being cut?
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I understand it is frustrating but the community here is really great. I worked with @langmuir-aksel and just to have the technical person there makes a world of difference in how you feel about the quest to get back on the right track. If you DM me… if you can do that here… I may be able to help you as well with some testing procedures.
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I’m putting new consumables in for each test.
I have an oil cooler at the compressor and filters at the cutter. No dryer yet.
Link to the relay Mook?
And why is the torch raising up as its cutting? That’s why it’s not cutting all the way thru, not consumables.
I can watch the torch raise from metal to 1" high. The fire gets visibly brighter and audibly louder…
Watch your voltage when it starts to rise. If the voltage drops, the THC will raise to try to increase the voltage.
Also watch the IHS light, if it turns green while cutting the program will raise the torch by .060" every time it happens, because it thinks the torch is touching the metal. That could be caused by the IHS wire connectors being loose or the connections to the IHS switch in the Z axis being loose. Check that the screws that hold the brass ring connectors onto the switch are tight.
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Can you post a picture of your consumable? some of it could be moisture. Is your compressor running during your cut? Moisture can trash a electrode very fast. Where are you putting your ground clamp? Is there plenty of slack in torch whip and the other wires? Where do you buy consumables?
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Are you using a laptop? Is it plugged in when your THC is rising this way? Are you running a nominal voltage or smart voltage?
I’m using a desk top that isn’t touching the table at all except thru the USB cable.
I think im on smart voltage not sure
So I did some of the thc troubleshooting flow chart. It all checks good until I got to the resistance check. So I took my control box off my table and it cut 3 parts decent. (Got further than before)
Put the box back on and it cut fine on a 4th part until the outside cut…
The 16ga sheet warped a little so the thc sensed that and raised up for the high spot, but never came back down when the sheet flattened out and so the outside cut is cut at a very high cut height that it used to get over the warp.
It did this on another cut on a previous part too.
It’s like the THC adjusts for the high spot but then doesn’t adjust back down for thr original cut height…
So now I’m nervous to cut anythjng big on a new sheet until I get this further figured out.
And falling further behind on orders.
Gonna run thru more of thr flow chart and test stuff even though according to it I don’t need to.
If I can’t figure it out I’ll call or email langmuir Monday.
What is your cut height programed for ?
If you have 0v written in the nominal voltage spot then you are using smart voltage.
.063 or whatever default Is
I had an almost identical issue recently while using a desktop and as soon as I swapped to a laptop not plugged into the wall it worked fine.
Did you do the THC test while in firecontrol? When my issue was occurring I’d do the THC test and only see 40-70V live voltage. I swapped the usb straight to my laptop and retried and saw ~124V. When the issue occurred the pierce height was fine, then it’d drop to cut height and then it would progressively climb higher up, it was much more noticeable the longer the cut was.
Has firecontrol ever frozen on you? It’s another symptom of interference from a plugged in computer/laptop.
You can now do the “L1 inductor mod” which supposedly prevents the interference issue, but requires soldering on your main board for the table.
Another thing you can check is to clean the IHS switch on the Z axis, although anytime I had an issue there I’d be reading 5-10V live voltage at idle and my torch would dive down not up.
Last thing I’d check is that your z axis moves freely, if it’s adjusting up then physically can’t go back down your bearings on z axis may be binding
Ya, ivr been told to try a laptop. So I guess I will.
Testing was with firecontrol. I have the newest version snd the USB driver. During the test I had 0 at idle and like 0.2 live. So I dove into testing.
Yes, the longer the run, the higher it goes.
Firecontrol has never frozen up on me.
I’ve had the IHS switch apart because it came to me with the little copper contacts in the box. I had to put them on…so everything should be clean and tight. The eyelets on the contacts are tight.
Z acis is free. I use it alot to pin point my 0 axis so I know it moves freely.
When testing the z axis for sticking I do it by hand just because you can make sure it moves freely without any extra effort. I put it a little below cut height then move it up by hand and slowly release it (basically just moving the IHS setup). I think tin has mentioned doing it at 10ipm if you don’t want to do it by hand.
But yea definitely try a laptop, I wouldn’t have believed it was that until I saw it in front of me, it’s very odd. I never had a freeze up so never really thought about it being interference.
I never saw anything as low as .2V but that’s definitely why your torch is raising. Your torch goes high to try to increase your voltage. So say you’re using smart voltage, it decides “75V is perfect”… then your torch starts moving and it monitors it and sees your voltage reading low so it will bump your torch height to try to reach your target voltage, it checks and it’s still low, so it bumps it again. Over and over. This is more visible on long cuts because it has more time to adjust higher and higher. On shorter cuts by the time it’s done it hasn’t even started adjusting.
I’ll be doing the L1 mod as soon as I get a free moment to take the machine offline
Got a link to the L1 mod?
It’s a pinned post here
Edit: yea like ds said below here this mod was already done on newer machines, so check your board first if that L1 looks different you can prob just rule out interference
The L1 mod is only supposed to be needed on batch 1 & 2 machines. Newer machines were supposed to ship with a modified board to eliminate that problem.
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