it appears that the code is being inserted on new cuts, but not in the middle of a cut to facilitate the pause, based on cut time and distance
@pjohannik ⌠if I understand you correctly, that is intended behavior of the suggested function ppChkPauseOnTime()âŚ
I see that now. Sorry this code is all new to me. I thought it would start the counter o. Pen down and then after the time limit it would pause. How could I do this in the middle of long cuts?
I strongly advise against interrupting a cut, the variables are many, within the pp or using Action Points with a Code Snippet. I wonât be able to advise on that approach. There a likely very simple toolpath cases where it may work fine within the pp, none come to mind for me at this moment. Iâm just pointing out that it only takes one case to ruin an expensive sheet of metal (of course thereâs always welding to fix), if you are looking for a solution that works every time and you donât have to give the situation further thought.
If you have a cut that you believe will be longer than your duty cycle, you should consider drawing the contour as an open shape, but then that presents other cascaded issues such as sheetcam prevented from automatically flipflopping the kerf outside vs. inside for interior shapes. Or perhaps better, consider cutting the long contour with lower amps, slower feedrate, such that duty cycle is 100%.
in my case I am cutting already a slow rate and at 60 amps for 5/8â plate and the part is still causing to hit duty cycle. Also since I am using 5/8 tabs really do not work for what I need. I have the everlast 82i but it still states that 100% is not truly 100% it is 63 amps for 10 min of run and 4 min of cool down. I was trying to automate the process instead of hitting the pause button in Firecontrol.
You say âtabsâ. That triggered a thought for me, unless your reference to âtabsâ means you canât use sheetcamâs tab placement feature (Iâm not sure why). Assuming its not, some time ago I explored sheetcam âtabsâ (menu Mode / âEdit tabsâ) feature for a similar use case as yours, that is to interrupt a plasma contour cut in a specific toolpath. âTabsâ insert a cutter lift in the toolpath, so in the case of Jet Operation, itâs like an end of cut/toolpath situation, triggering OnPenUp(), motion forward on the toolpath to âjumpâ the defined tab width, and then triggers OnPenDown() to resume cutting the toolpath. In the case of Jet Operation, âtabsâ effectively turn a closed contour toolpath into at least two segments, but without the behavior of an open contour. So define the tab width to be 1/2 of your kerf width and you effectively have an edge start on the resuming cut.
In your case, in order to pause, youâd have to manually press the pause button (assuming there is one) on Firecontrol while the torch is off and lifted. Then resume when ready.
I was too hasty in posting the function ppChkPauseOnTime() in the linked reference, I had ripped it from another of my pps and thought I fixed up the variable initializations and boolean testing correctly, but there are serveral nit errors in that code posted above. Rather than explain all the errors, best to just refer folks to the full pp I have since added it to.
I ran it through moderate testing this morning. Sorry if I confused anyone.
sheetcam can leave partIndex, toolClass, and some other global core variables with stale values from a previous pp run. And custom option âbooleansâ are not actual boolean data type, rather they are 0 and 1.
I will give tabs a shot