Looking for some help! I posted this on facebook support group as well, sorry for the double post, but I’m trying to get this out in the mail today.
After updating to 20.5 I am having some IHS issues I believe.
So After updating I was prompted to update my post for sheetcam. It said I could update the tap file in firecontrol in the mean time. Great, so I did that and went to run a program I’ve run a million times before.
However, on the initial drop it would go into the surface of the metal and continue trying to go down as if it weren’t sensing the metal there at all. It never tried to raise until I stopped the program and manually jogged it up.
I stopped being lazy and installed the new Firecontrol v1.6 post for sheetcam and reran the post processor.
Went back to the table (I use two different computers one for design and one out in the shop) and started the program. The torch drops to sense the metal, and it keeps going still, but does lift up. However it doesn’t “bounce” like it used to. Once the pierce starts and the THC starts reading it does alright for the few first cuts, but eventually makes a complete mess of things.
I tried moving over and starting again but it’s more of the same. Video below to show it not bouncing.
Well it’s good to hear that the no bounce is supposed to be happening. It appears though that the IHS is off. My cut height is way too high so on the cuts that are piercing and working I get a pretty good V and some aren’t getting all the way through. I’m also losing the arc and getting a ton of the “cutting voltage not detected by LS THC”.
The THC seems to be working as its running. It reads a voltage and adjusts the Z axis to keep it in that range, the problem is the range it is trying to keep it in is FAR too far above the piece being cut. It almost looks like its closer to 3/16" above the material it is trying to cut than the .08" that I have in the tool setup in sheetcam
I didn’t change any settings from what I was previously using. .15 pierce height and .08 cut height is what I’ve been using with the Razorcut that came with the table.
Ground clamp is directly on the piece and I even took a wire brush to clean it up to make sure I was getting a decent ground.
3/16 hot rolled 30ipm at 30 amps which is what I had been using.
Your code looks clean and the video you sent above also looks good. The torch is piercing and then dropping close for the cut and the cuts look good. Do you have a video where the torch is up high like you say at 3/16" ?
Based on the ‘Bad Cuts’ picture above it looks like something else is going on, perhaps bad consumables?
I just went and traded out consumables and even though they only had a handful of cuts on them and they looked fine it’s definitely doing better.
However when I trad out consumables the first dozen or so pierces I routinely get misfires. That’s nothing new. I just assumed they needed to break it. But it does give me an excellent opportunity to measure the cut height.
It senses the height, no longer bounces, goes up to the Pierce height, strikes the arc (I see the spark) and it plunges to the cut height and started moving before it realized there was no voltage and then stopped the program. I have a set of feeler gauges and measured the tip of the torch at approximately .125” above the surface when it froze.
I restarted the program and it started but kept raising up higher and higher until it made a mess and lost the arc as pictured below.
I use a refrigerated air dryer right before the plasma and about 50’ away from a 60 gallon compressor
What are you using for Voltage in your THC settings…SmartVoltage or a Nominal Voltage setting? If you are using Nominal Voltage the torch would raise after a misfire event which could explain what you are seeing there. Can you get a video of this?
I just leave it on smart, because I assume it’s a lot smarter than I am
I hadn’t seen that, thanks for sending it, I’ll pick one up and try not to liquefy the entire circuit board.
The good news is after misfiring a half dozen times or so the cutter seems to have settled down.
However I’m still cutting too high resulting in all my cuts to be pretty beveled in. Maybe I need to set my cut height lower than it should be to get the same end result?
Call this a noob question but there is statement from sheetcam that you should use the same PC for sheetcam code that you cut with…do you think there might be some issues with that?
@brownfox yes it is. I think I read somewhere about unplugging it, or having it plugged into a separate circuit. I might have to try that too. Good call
