How bad is it to forget to connect the ground clamp before starting a program?
Saturday, the 1st two tries on the Crossfire ended quickly with a THC error message. Not only did I forget the attached the ground clamp to the table, I forgot to take it out of the packaging and install it on the Razorweld Cut 45. The program ran for about 1 second, but then errored out. After getting the ground set up. the machine seemed to cut ok, but I don’t have a frame of reference to know good from bad cut quality.
At the end of the day, moved the ground clamp to facilitate some cleaning. Then, this morning I, hit start on another program (just a straight cut) and, again, forgot to attach the ground clamp.
I always clamp it to the back of the water pan when I take it off the sheet. On those times when I have forgotten to clamp it on the next sheet, it still cuts just fine.
It is not likely to damage much except for the scarring of the piece of metal. If it cuts fine after attaching the work lead then it really isn’t much consequence.
It might do some extra wear on the consumables but the torch circuitry is designed to shut off to stop damage to the torch.
I have made that mistake at least half a dozen times. Going thru a mental check list is always helpful:
Air pressure is on and attached to the back of the machine at the psi that you need.
Metal positioned on the table, where you want it
Work lead attached to the metal
Check consumables: look for wear and the amperage limit of the consumables
Turn on cutter and set the amperage on the cutter
Load the gcode file into FireControl
Verify the Program Origin of the design
Position torch at the location that would correspond to the Program Origin, Zero all axes for the Work Zero.
Before hitting [START] click on Go To Work Zero to make sure that the torch is at “Work Zero” otherwise when you press [START] FireControl will begin expecting you are at “Work Zero”.