Hello all, fairly new user to this system and cnc in general. i wanted to put my experience out here and see if anyone had any feed back or it might help someone as well. i just got my torch height controller last week and was experiencing what i felt to be way to tall of a cut height when using automatic torch height control. I have an everlast power plasma 52i. i am wired thru the cnc pigtail coming out of the back of the plasma torch. It passed diagnostics but did say the voltage was on the high side but it could be worked with. After watching a few you tube videos and reading the torch height control manual it looked like voltage reading during cut should be between 70 volts and up to 110 or so. my first experiences were using smart voltage on 16g. This is where i was seeing almost a quarter inch between cutting orifice and the material. i began making a straight 12 inch cut and manually setting the voltage goal to 90 volts @ 32 amps @ 130ipm. After many many 12 inch cut and evaluations i arrived at the settings of 35volts @ 32 amps @ 200 ipm on 16g. My cut quality is amazing with virtually zero dross. Now, my question to the pros on here…35 volts seems awfully low based on the range in the manual, however it is my understanding that everlast has some peculiar voltage level outputs compared to some other brands. its hard for me to argue with my results though. i have intentionally put a bend in my material at those settings to see if thc can accomadate the z axis changes in the sheet metal and it works flawlessly. i welcome any input that folks might have on this topic.
Dylan
If it works, it works. Most of us using Everlast machines are using raw voltage directly from the lugs inside the machine.
I just got my 62i running with THC. I didn’t do my research and tried to use the everlast voltage divider with 0v showing up on the THC test. switched to pins 5 and 7 on the cnc plug into the raw voltage on the VIM and we’re good to go. THC test showed something like 77v.
Mine read 78volts in the test. The other issue I had was that initially when I hooked up the pigtail according to the way I interpreted the polarity I got a 0 voltage reading. Before doing anything else I just changed the polarity and it gave me the 78volts. If your kerf seems too wide or if you notice the cut seems to be too high in the z axis you might look at setting you own nominal voltage.
My cut height appears to be about .010-.020" higher than commanded, but my cut results in 1/8" at least are acceptable using SMART voltage. Is your IHS getting you to the right position prior to the pierce? I originally messed up my z origin in sheetcam and ended up with the torch about 1/4" above the part. With smart voltage on, does your torch start out at 1/4" above the sheet, or does the THC move it up from the commanded cut height?
IMO, you should be able to rely on SMART voltage, and you have some other issue getting in your way.
Honestly I don’t have feeler gauges to check.I am at this point strictly using fusion and fire control. I believe I have the tool set up properly in fusion but I could be wrong. Some of the tutorials I found to help get things going were not geared towards the pro table, so I might have the tool programmed incorrectly. When I turn off THC and just allow it to do the initial height set and cut I visualize the cut height. I too may have the wrong initial height setting. That too seems a bit high but acceptable as long as the material stays flat. When I use THC with smart voltage it will start at that initial “ok” height but then lengthen to what looks to be almost a quarter inch to me. At that point I began playing with the nominal voltage setting and arrived at this Kerf width on 16g. .025 kerf.
