Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => Mach4 General Discussion => Topic started by: jcoldon on April 17, 2018, 10:13:03 AM
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when are we getting mach 4 plasma a lot of people want to know
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Hi,
plasma requires THC support and that support is enacted to the motion controller not Mach.
As far as I know Vital Systems HiCon board is the only motion controller that has THC support. The short answer is you can have Mach4 plasma right now.
Craig
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Hi Craig,
I think he may be referring to the long awaited Mach4 Plasma Screen Set. ( http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,36395.0.html )
Tweakie.
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Hi,
kool, nice features. Some of the Plasma drafting software I've seen on customers machines is very similar.
Having said that there is nothing in it that is strictly necessary and you could use Mach4 to run a plasma CNC right now in its absence.
Craig
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I was referring to the long waited mach 4 plasma screen I have mach 4 plasma now using the hilcon controller from vital systems.
I even have an engraver setup thanks to help on this site thanks
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Hi,
what in particular is this new screen supposed to do?
Is there any reason that you don't make your own screen, after all that's what the screen editor/GUI was provided for.
Craig
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The screen Bryanna talked about on the Mach Support YouTube channel had a teach function and was set up for Plasma, with torch voltage dials.
But I am with Craig, what exactly do people want in a plasma screen set? The screen editor is very powerful. You can do all kinds of stuff with it.
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I talked to a lot of people that build there own plasma tables from scratch. I can tell you they don't want to make the screen. they just want the features like mach 3 has with THC . so they can just wire things up to the controller . and not spend weeks figuring out how to program the screen its that simple. and make the screen easy to use and setup .
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Hi,
. they just want the features like mach 3 has with THC
you have it in one, carry on using Mach3.
Mach4 is not nor ever will be Mach3. Mach4 is highly programmable/configurable for OEM manufacturers to take up and heavily modify for use on their machine. It is highly likely that you wont
even recognize that its based on Mach when on their machine.
Sales to OEM manufacturers is the business life blood of NFS. Mach4Hobby at $200 with a perpetual licence just wont bring in the income necessary to run a business. Thus Mach4 is primarily for industry
but we as hobbyists can participate but our wishes are likely ignored in favour of industrial users.
The norm with Mach4 is that you take the basic program and GUI and modify it for your use. If you don't like that, or cannot do it, then stay away from Mach4...you will hate it!
Craig
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well with that attitude mach 4 will never make it . I don't believe NFS has that attitude there a lot of end users out there then mfg .
then also ask your selfe why cand cnc went with Linux when he needed support for mach 3 and had to pay the original person at NFS to fix what ever he needed . so were was his mfg support .
he did not want to invest in mach 4 making a screen to make things work . I sure there is more to the cand cnc story .he had a good mach 3 product why tormach mills went Linux also .
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Hi,
sorry if my comments offend...they are my own opinons only.
The norm with Mach4 is that you take the basic program and GUI and modify it for your use.
You know this to be the case because you had to program your machine to suit your needs. That is the common
(normal) story with Mach4, I did the same. Following your posts over that time I would guess you found it a challenge
at times but you stuck with it and got a result.
There will be others who will not/ cannot or refuse to invest that effort. For those people I would recomend either sticking
with Mach3 or one of the other software solutions, Mach4 is likely to make them very unhappy.
One of the recurring gripes by hobbyists about Mach4 is that the documentation lags the current state of the
software, often by quite a bit. You might ask 'why NFS would ignore what seems like a straight forward request
by users?'.
Over the same time that these complaints about Mach4 have been raised Mach has released G31.1, G31.2 etc, the all new
PMC facility,the all new (and light years ahead of Mach3) probing facility and as signaled by Bryanna a new Teach module
coming. It is not that NFS are not doing stuff, its just that they are doing development rather than documentation.
My contention is that NFS are working on those items which are most likely to attract the customers they need to survive.
I don't believe for a moment that NFS intends to slight hobbyist users but they need to concentrate on those matters
which result in useful sales. No matter which way you look at it the sale of one Industrial licence to an OEM is worth
seven times what I paid as a Hobbyist.
While it might be that I as a hobbyist I get less service from NFS I nonetheless commend them and the strategy of
securing OEM sales, I benefit as a spin off of those new developments. Even hosting this website is supported by sales...
in absence of sales the forum goes and that would be a shame.
Craig
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Hey all,
I haven't chimed in before because I don't have a definitive release date on the new Mach4 Plasma screen. Our team is working on making it the best we can before we release it to the public. If we were to deploy it before it was fully functional, we would never hear the end of it. That being said, I understand there are users who are eager to use the new screen and I am just as excited to share it with the world.
Sales to OEM manufacturers is the business life blood of NFS. Mach4Hobby at $200 with a perpetual licence just wont bring in the income necessary to run a business. Thus Mach4 is primarily for industry
but we as hobbyists can participate but our wishes are likely ignored in favour of industrial users.
I wanted to clarify something here. Our development and support teams do not think of hobby users as "less than" and, personally, the majority of my work day to day is focused on hobby users. It is true that industrial customers are responsible for more of our sales by dollar amount, but many of the features that are developed for those customers are eventually made available to hobby users--and at no additional cost. I don't respond to much on this forum because I don't want to interrupt the productive discourse that happens here, but I wanted everyone to know that you are heard and appreciated.
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I need help with the plasma screen....i just want to use the touch off feature, i have a floating head. Nothing on sheetcam works for mach 4 and floating head.......i dont have the money for a new board, proma etc. What are my options ?
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hello! i have completely set up my new mach4_plasma profile with the exact same info as the info in my first regular mach 4 profile (the one i had operating my plasma table before the release of the plasma screen set).
i upload some gcode files i made on sheetcam using the "mach 3 plasma " post processor which i have used on my mach 4 original profile (before mach 4 plasma set release) without any problem.........but now on this mach 4 plasma profile when i run the gcode it initiates the touch off successfully but after it probs it doesn't proceed to run the gcode, it stops and it reads out "macro alarm: 3 merror_timed_out" and wont continue after that point and that happens every time......do you think its a macro script problem? what could be wrong. why wont this work!!!!! i just want it to toucvh off and thats it!!!
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The only time it will give the "macro alarm: 3 merror_timed_out" is if the THC on input into Mach4 is not seen as active within the time you have set for your Arc OK Delay.
If you do not have an Arc Ok signal you shouldn't be using THC. THC stands for Torch Height Control. If all you want is a touch off routine it does not sound like you are using any kind of THC.
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You are correct sur!! I just want to do the touch off but have no thc due to low funds at the moment...what would you recomend i do with my settings?
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I have it set to manual mode btw
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What you do with your settings depends on what you want the machine to do.
List out how you envision the machine working and we will go from there.
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I would be happy if i could just have it touch off at every beggining of a cut.....its just that that macro alarm: 3 merror_timed_out
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I run the file and it touches off and then i get that message and it doest go past the m03 line...it just stays there and doesnt continue
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Hi,
m03 is meant to start the arc, The machine will wait until the arc starts as signaled by the 'Arc OK' signal.
If it doesn't get that signal eventually it will fault 'Timed Out'.
From what you have described the fault is you plasma is not starting.
What sort of plasma machine are you using?
Craig
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I have a hypertherm powermax 1000 g3, but i just want my machine to do touch off and thats it.....i dont care about the "arc ok" signal...is there a way to opt out of it that im missing in the settings? I have it set to manual mode, for probe i have probe 0 only and "ignore all other probs" checked off.
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Hi,
but i just want my machine to do touch off and thats it.....i dont care about the "arc ok" signal...is there a way to opt out of it that im missing in the settings?
But you have called m03....ie start the plasma......therefore the machine waits for the ArcOK signal. Its fundamental to the
operation of plasma tables.
If you just want to touch off why don't you use either g31 direct or write a script that includes a g31?
What you are trying to do is use a very small subset of a module that has many interlocked and dependent procedures,
when you use just one procedure the module expects you to carry on with the others....and faults if you don't.
Craig
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Oh ok thank you for the info....the reason i wasnt worried about it or didnt car is because when i made my interface connection cable from the motion controler box to the hypertherm 1000 i only used 2 wires (shielded) which i used to turn on the torch but i didnt do anything with the other 2 pins which are the arc ok signals.......do you think i will have an issue once i make a new interface cable with the arc ok wires in it?
I find it weird that i get the same (3 merror_timed_out) in the simulation run......is thtlat normal?
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i dont care about the "arc ok" signal...is there a way to opt out of it that im missing in the settings?
Craig is exactly right. You should really consider more automation or less. You are in a weird manumatic place.
But there is a way. If in the plasma screen configuration you enable "Use Analog Voltage for Arc OK" and make sure your target voltage and actual voltage register is set to a value between the min and max you set up in the plasma screen configuration and set the THC mode to manual it will work.
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But i only have the torch firing wires in use with a relay on my board, nothing to measure any voltage from my torch or machine..........will i have to make a new interface cable to use the other pins for arc ok in the hypertherm to my break out board then? Should i just make one to be safe?
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Or is there a way to get it to work with just the torch on/ off pins?
I just want it to touch off
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Or is there a way to get it to work with just the torch on/ off pins?
I just told you how to do it.
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Here is mine settings. Does works for me. Touch off (+ Pierce delay / high ..) only. No THC
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Oooh duuuh haha i just wasnt sure if you understood my home made interface connection only has 2 wires lol ....im gonna give it a try today 😁
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Thank you so much cncNor!!!!!! It worked! Success!!!!
So it touches off just how i wanted without the use of arc ok wires.....
So only torch on and off and touch off! 😁👍
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Yup, that is how I designed it to work. Glad you got it sorted. :)
Now you should be able to use the up and down buttons in the lower THC panel to jog the Z up and down manually as it is cutting. So, you can adjust your cut height on the fly. You can do the same thing manually that a THC does automatically.
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Thank you so much for your help there's just one thing though does it matter if my Z axis isn't assigned to motor to in the Mach configuration? Because I just have motor 0 and slave is one motor to use my y axis and motor 3 is my Z axis
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Have a look in your C:\Mach4Hobby\Docs folder, Plasma_Configuration.pdf. That is covered on page 2 and 3.
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Quick question my guy...
Does youre set up adjust automatically to any distance change between torch and material when using the rouch off feature?
I was given a few tips to input in my machb4 software but im not getting auto adjustments when touching off when it moves to another area on material thats closer/ further away....
Any help?