New member trying to get my Crossfire Pro going. I had a Hypertherm Powermax 45 before I bought my machine and lucked out by it having the CPC port already installed. When searching how to use it, I found where people were modifying the hand torch by switching pin 6 to 8 to fool the plasma cutter into thinking it had a machine torch. My question is, has anyone ever tapped into the hand torch trigger wiring (like you would if you didn’t have the CPC) and wire that into the blank spots on the CPC? I’d like to make it easy to convert back to hand torch quickly and I am also unsure if I will use this plasma cutter long term, or upgrade to a newer model. My thinking was if I could make a clean connection thru the CPC connector and not have to change anything it would be so much easier to convert from hand to machine mode. I’m already planning on making my own cable so I could pin everything to match. Thoughts???
I will tag @mechanic416 on this…he is the plasma Guru here
Thanks toolboy
I should probably clarify, I have enough wiring background to know I can tap the trigger wires and go through the CPC connector. I’m just not sure if I will get the divided voltage signal if the Hypertherm doesn’t think a machine torch is connected. I’ve already ordered the connectors I need, so if nothing else I will check for voltage while using the hand torch and verify if it does or not. I just thought I’d check here before I put my plasma cutter part way back together to test it, then back apart to wire.
Thanks again
For anyone who stumbles on this topic in the future, the answer is yes it is possible. The CPC connector does have divided voltage while using the hand torch. So what I did was follow the Langmuir directions for tapping into the trigger of the hand torch and connected those wires to a couple open spots in the machine’s CPC port. Then I wired my own connector to go from the hypertherm to the cossfire pro. This enabled me to wire the connector to match my modified CPC port. I don’t have the Pro fully functional at this point, but everything looks like it will work perfectly.
Pros - I don’t have to take my hand torch connection apart to swap from CNC to hand operation.
Cons - 1)You did have to take the machine apart to wire everything. My machine is old enough I didn’t have to worry about voiding the warranty, so not a big deal. 2) You need to either make your own CPC cable or modify whatever you buy to match your machine (or vice versa). 3) this does bypass certain safety features built into the torch. Basically you will be able to tell the machine to fire the torch even if it isn’t connected or you have removed your consumables. I don’t see this as a deal breaker, just means I should shut down things before changing consumables. That probably isn’t a bad habit to have in general.
Would I do this again, IDK. It would definitely be quicker to just swap the pins on the hand torch connector. So I guess it all depends on how much I end up switching back and forth. But as a hobby guy, I do like the idea of being able to switch back and forth a little easier/quicker at this point.