I am not sure if this is where i should post.

I am working on my friends simple plasma cutter.  It was running fine until there was a power problem.  My friend did not have a backup.  How many times have we heard of that.  He decided to try and fix it on his own.  I could of done a recovery and had good success.  As he worked through the problems he discovered that the previous owner of the plasma cutter had a hacked version of Mach3.  Friend has since purchased a licensed version.  Friend wiped the computer drive and reinstalled windows 7 and installed the newly acquired Mach3 software.  We are moving in the right direction.

A quick description of his plasma cutter.  It has some unknown Chinese brand stepper motors.  X axis one motor, Y axis one motor and a slave motor on A axis, Z axis.  Plasma Cutter is Hypertherm 65 with THC output.

I have Calibrated X, Y, Z and A.  We are able to cut straight lines, cycle the plasma cutter.  When I try cutting a radius, I get the error code "Radius to end of Arc differs from Radius to start".  I am not sure what program my friend is using to drawn with but he is using Lazycam to develop his g code.  I have searched these forms and have found many possible solutions, most regarding his general setups.  I have have tried to do just one operation of cutting and that is a 1" bolt hole.  Total lines of code perhaps 10 lines.  I still get the error.  When I change the IJ mode to absolute my slave axis A stops working other.

I will deeply indebted to any one that is able to point me to the right direction.

Thanks
Derk

IJ mode is likely the problem. Or the g-code is just wrong.
And, IJ mode should have nothing at all to do with your A axis.

Currently my IJ is set to Inc.  Every time I change the IJ to Abs, as I mention in my first post the slave motor stops working.  The slave motor is controlled by the A axis.  When the IJ is set to Inc it errors out on gcode line that G2 the command for the radius.

Gerry,

I have read that perhaps I need to include a G91.1 in my preamble.  You can see my lack understanding regarding my G code skills.  I will post the actual Gcode in an hour or so.

I'm still unclear as to why when I change IJ to abs my slave motor stops working, which is controlled by A axis.

I have for years been going to build a plasma cutter.  If I state from scratch Mach3 or Mach4 serve my needs better?

Thanks

Derk

G91.1 just forces Incremental IJ if Mach3 is in Absolute IJ mode.

Changing IJ mode should not stop the A motor from working, so  I can't help you there.

And I've never used a plasma machine, so I don't know which is better.

Could you point me in any direction for additional help?