M7 and M9 controls

[john_co111er]

I have a DIY CNC Gantry that I use for plasma cutting. My torch is a cheapo Chinese unit that works great when hand cutting but not for the CNC. I am adding an electronic spark starter system so the arc starts reliably but am having some diffiulties in making the system work the way I want it to. Once the arc starts, I want to turn off the starter circuit. My initiall thought was to use the mist coolant on (M7) to fire off the starter circuit and then All Coolant Off (M9) to shut the circuit down. Problem is that the M9 shuts off the plasma cutter as well.
Is the response to the M9 correct? I'm using M3 to start the torch and M5 to stop.
John

[Bill_O]

john,

make your own m codes to turn it on and off. pick some numbers like M100 and M101

bill

[BR549]

Normally one uses the M3-M5 to turn on/off the torch and use the M7/8 M9 for options.

The M9 should NOT be shutting down the torch UNLESS you have duplicate pins set.

(;-) TP

[john_co111er]

For further diagnosis: I have been running everything off of a secondary parallel adapter. M3 is set to Output #1 by the Ports and Pins tab.
In the Output Signals Tab, Output 1 is set to port 2, pin 1.
On adding the spark starter, I decided to use the primary parallel port and set the Output to #6, which is set to Port 1, pin 1.
On the Diagnostics page when I toggle the 2 values (Torch On) and (Mist On) they behave as expected. The diagnostic display of
the primary Port doesn't show any activity. Measurements of the pin voltages show the port to be alive but not responding to the
buttons. Diagnostics shows the port to be fine as well.
Any other ideas?