Hi guys,

built my first CNC machine, a plasma.
Using Mach 4 for the first time. Controller is a PoKeys57CNC.
The machine dont got an Z-axis, since it doesnt need one, mechanically - Please no discussion on this, its a fact for this machine

If I want to start a simple GCode now, generated with SheetCam:
N0100 M03
N0120 G02 X182.3223 Y172.6777 I17.6777 J-17.6777 F1000.0
N0130 M05

When I hit Cycle Start, it says, "MACRO ALARM: 3 The probe did not strike during our M3 touch move."
What does that mean, "our M3 touch move."?
I have only activated X and Y-axis.
And also, M3 is "start spindle", isnt it?
How can I deactivate probing?
When I hit Cycle Start again, it says: "Clear alarm condition with Reset before Cycle Start."
Well, after reset, it just repeats.
Shouldnt only G31 start a probing?

Hope someone can help here... Dont know how to move on.

Cheers, Ben.

Seems I cant edit my previous post..

Just saw that in the Control configuration in Mach 4, in the tab "Axis Mapping", the z-axis was activated.
Now i deactivated here also (like in tab "motors"),
And now I got the error message: "Line 0: Axis 2 commanded while disabled".

So the question stays the same.

Cheers,
Ben

This is what is in the standard plasma m3.mcs macro :-

function m3()
   mcTHC.FireOn()
end

if (mc.mcInEditor() == 1) then
    m3()
end

As you can see it turns the plasma on, if you do it a different way then remove the mcTHC.FireOn() line in the macro.

It might be a good idea to read the help files in the Docs folder inside Mach4.

Hi Graham,

thank you so much. For reminding me of RTFM xD I feel a little bit ashame
Deleting the line you mentioned was not enough..
But deleting the whole macro files (m3, m5) was the solution. Mach 4 then will use the commands just as simple outputs if no macro is written.

Cheers,
Ben