Figuring this machine out, using a vipercut 30. Works great, only issue is that when the torch head lifts from the metal, it loses arc, and theres a 5(ish) second delay before the torch will fire again, whereas firecontrol will continue "cutting " even though the torch is not firing… if you pause the program, after the torch head lifts, and wait for the air to stop discharging , you can hit resume and theres no issue, surely theres a way to set things up where you dont have to manually hit pause between cuts… is this a pierce delay setting that im missing, or is there something else going on. help appreciated!
how big the the air compressor?
welcome to the forum…
what program are you using for post processing?
what are your settings for Pierce delay…?
Air compressor is plenty large enough, and using Fusion 360 and firecontrol. Pretty sure im battling “postflow” on our plasma cutter. it does the same thing if youre manually cutting something out on without the crossfire pro, but it was never a issue to have a 5-10 second delay between cuts. peirce delay is set at 100%. bumped it up to 500% and it didnt have any effect. if anyone knows how to override “post flow” that would be awesome!
Welcome to the forums.
Just at face value this sounds like a.
Low air issue
Or potentially a grounding issue.
A couple investigatory questions (maybe some repeat questions)
What material are you cutting?
What amperage are you setting your machine for? Are you running that machine off 110 or 220?
Where are you clamping your ground?
Do you have at least 75 PSI at the machine for an incoming pressure that is definitely being maintained during the cut?( This should be measured as near to the plasma machine as possible, tank pressure does not mean anything)
The consumables are in decent condition and are the proper consumables or the operation you’re doing?
Depending on your material thickness your pierced away should be set to .5 or more.
Fire control automatically adds a little bit of delay to the first pierce delay.
Here’s the link to the operations manual of the vipercut 30
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If your machine doesn’t have the option, then buying a new machine would be the answer.
I don’t believe there’s any g code that deals with post flow and if there was I’m not sure how it would send that signal to your plasma machine. Without adding some sort of extra wires to accommodate that communication.
From the manual it looks like there’s a built-in 30 second delay. But you’re saying you can start it again in 5 top 10 seconds so it must not need the whole 30-second delay to run to be restarted.
So there might be another delay besides post flow which is hanging you up. It’s pretty clear you’re overriding the post flow delay already.
Try manually making a cut, then try to make a second cut if you pull the trigger and there is a delay before it starts you should be able to figure out a setting for pierce delay. If it doesn’t start at all you need to find a way to put a short puase after each cut before moving to next cut. Hypertherms have a post flow that requires .4 seconds added to book pierce delay for the 25’ lead.
Just in case there’s some misunderstanding here.
The Pierce delay is how long your torch will fire while piercing.
Where is what I think you want is a delay before it begins to pierce.
Just offering up and idea for a test. If pierce delay is set to .4 500% isnt enough to overcome a 5 second post flow issue. .4x 500% is only 2 seconds if my math is correct.
If you had your Pierce delay set for 10 minutes it wouldn’t overcome the post flow delay.
The post flow delay starts after the torch has fired.
And "Pierce delay"when you look at it semantically isn’t the best choice in words for that operation. It should have been named something like “Pierce firing time length”
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after much searching it seems like this is a common occourence with the model of plasma cutter we have. theres a capacitor we can remove to overcome the post flow. I think for now were going to do what has been working which is pausing the program between cuts, to allow the torch time to run its 5 second post flow. after were through with the rush of signage we are making, we will probably remove the capacitor, would hate to cause other issues and be dead in the water. wish there was a “pause between cut” function in fire control, until then, we shall babysit the machine.
I see, it’s from before my time on the forum site.
There is some tools for visual code studio where you might be able to insert the pauses before every Pierce like you want.
I think you might be able to even batch insert that pause into every insert before a pierce as well. So you don’t have to spend the time going through the whole code.
It’s interesting that capacitor only affected some machines? So maybe just replacing it with a high quality capacitor at the same value with the polarity correct might be an answer as well then at least you would have some post flow to properly cool the consumables in between cutting.
Don’t know if this might be something to help you out but @S_Oates came up with a little program for easily adding pauses to cut files.
I’ve used it on some pieces with lots of cuts (my compressor isn’t super big) and it works well. Does .tap or .nc files. You just specify the pause length (and also you can add pauses every X cuts for torch cooldown if you like) and it inserts the code and saves out a modified post.
Pretty nifty.
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I don’t know if there is a setting in Fusion for this, but Sheetcam has a setting to pause after each cut loop. I use it to allow the torch some time to cool before moving to the next cut loop and it gives me time to catch any tip ups that occur.
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Fusion 360 does have options to add some stops delays between operations
Fusion 360 Help | Manual NC Entry reference | Autodesk
But I do wish they did have a pause before loop option.
You never want to delete post flow, unless you want to burn up your consumables and torch in a short time.
Check your retaining cup on the torch. Make sure it has 6 holes in it and they are clean not plugged up… If it only has 2 or 4 then that may be the trouble.
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