There has been at least three separate individuals in the last month post that their torch was dragging on the metal while they were cutting and the torch failed to lift up the one inch after each cut. If what I am about to describe sounds like your scenario, I would urge you to recheck your actual cut height.
Back story (Quick version): My cut height was way off. When it was CAM’d for 0.06 I was getting 0.095. I made some major adjustments with my proposed cut height (0.021) and springback (-0.02) and this achieved a cut height of 0.060. My cuts were never better: minimal to no dross and minimal to no bevel.
That same situation continued for more than a year, although I don’t do a lot of cutting.
Earlier this year, I began having the very issue of the torch dragging on the metal, moving it out of place and not returning to a reasonable height during rapids nor at the end of the program. I was not realizing inferior cuts because I was using “Nominal Voltage” with the THC. As you probably know, ‘Nominal Voltage’ does not care what the height is. It will put the torch at the height that achieves the correct voltage you set. This is why my cut quality did not show a problem.
I finally did Phillips cut height test again. The same one that resulted in the 0.095 before.
cut height test.tap (224 Bytes)
It was now registering dead-on at 0.060 so I changed my post-processing with cut height of 0.060 and left the spring back at -0.02 since I was cutting .25 inch steel.
Results: Cuts were perfect, no dragging on the metal and torch lifted up one inch at the end of the program.
So if your torch is dragging and not returning to 1 inch height consider re-running Phillips cut height test.
Note: I wrote “PSA?” as this might need to be a Public Service Announcement to anyone who may have followed my advice in the past and is now having the issues outlined. 