I just installed the THC/IHS on my XL and I love it. But I do have a bunch of gcode files that I processed before THC. I’ll get around to redoing them with THC at some point (at least the files that I have DXFs for. Don’t really want to modify the gcode files by hand and don’t think you can modify them in sheetcam after the fact. Please correct me if I’m wrong )
So I figured all I had to do was turn off THC set cut height manually and run the files like that but what I find is that although it works fine for the first pierce at the end of the pierce the z axis raises up and of course doesn’t drop down subsequently and fires for the next pierce in mid air.
If I unplug the Z axis when I’m cutting those files that does the trick but is there something simple I’m missing within Firecontrol to toggle that off or??
do you save your jobs in sheetcam? if so, you should be able to open a saved job, then delete the operation for that job and re-post process with new post with thc.
I do save my jobs in sheetcam but I have a bunch of files that I post processed before I started using it so no job files for those ones. Just the Fusion .NC files and I didn’t save all of those out as DXF. Live and learn.
Yep they run and Firecontrol recognizes no THC and turns it off but I still get the z axis rising up after the initial cut and the torch stays up and fires in mid air off the job for the next cuts. No problem if I have only 1 cut to do.
If you have a decent text editor it’s trivial to replace M3 with the sequence of commands used to run IHS & enable THC and then run M3, Then, replace M5 with M5 H0. That SHOULD do the same thing.
Just look in a new postprocessed file to get the sequence of commands it would probably be fitted between a G0 X… Y… and M3 sequence.
If you need to edit your g-code files, I would recommend Notepad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
It is free, simple and designed to edit code. I use it to add pauses after each cut to prolong consumable life by keeping the tip cool.
The advanced ‘find and replace’ feature is powerful allowing you to replace one line of code with several lines of new instructions.
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