I have tried to roll my own post for Fusion and Mach4/ESS with THC for some time. I get the basics working but the torch height control never works.

Anyone made ground on this?

M@

Hi,
I can't really understand the point of this thread......THC is a realtime hardware thing not Gcode at all.

It's true that  Fusion 360 post generates Gcode from the Fusion tool path...but what Gcode command says 'Go up a little' or 'Go down a little'.....there is no such
Gcode instruction, and even if there were all Gcode instructions have to pass through the motion buffer, easily 100ms delay. That's not THC, THC is, or needs to be, realtime or close
to it.

Also this board is about Mach4....its not really about Autodesk software. All the excerpts that have been posted in this thread are from Autodesk's post processor which
is in C# if I understand it correctly....it's got nothing to do with New Fangled Solutions software at all. No doubt Mach4 users whom also use Fusion (as I do) am interested in Fusion posts
and so its not unreasonable to post on this board.......but strictly speaking this is not a Mach4 issue at all.

The ESS supports THC, in particular it supports the WarpRunner board, and that board is similar to the TMC board that precedes it. With the WarpRunner board and the plugin recommended
for it by Warp9 then THC works just fine.

Craig

Hi,
see the attached pic, it is of the ESS plugin HC (Height Control) tab. Note that there are a few options, from no HC, to manual HC,
to two hardware HC types, namely Up/Down pins like the familiar Proma type THC controller and WarpRunner/TMC type controllers.

Do you have either a Proma type or a WarpRunner/TMC type controller?

Craig

Looks like Andy at Warp9 is now dealing with this issue.

Tweakie.

.

Tweakie,
Do you know if Andy ever finished up a fusion 360 post processor for mach4 for plasma?
I can’t seem to find one anywhere.
Thanks,
Chuck.

Hi,
Fusion 360 already has a Mach4 post.

You will most likely have to modify it to suit your specific purpose, but the basic post is there and complete.

Craig

Hi,
no doubt you'll want this:

https://cam.autodesk.com/posts/posts/guides/Post%20Processor%20Training%20Guide.pdf

A breezy 288 pages, all in a good days work.

Craig

Thanks Craig for your reply.

I’m not much on programming, hopefully somebody more familiar with  programming  can modify the Mach4 Mill post processor  to work on  plasma cutting.

Chuck

Hi,
but what is it you want the post to do?

THC is realtime hardware controlledprocess, its got nothing to do with Gcode.

A post, any post, can only ever produce Gcode, that's what it does. But there is NO Gcode that says 'go up a little or go down little', that is THC and is not
part of the Gcode file at all.

Craig

Craig,
I would like it to work the way the Artsoft Mach3 plasma post processor works. 

The Mach4 Laser post processor works well using the M 62/M 63 commands that  Seth yes from liberty machine put together a Mach4  laser post processor.  But it does not work for Plasma Cutting.

Chuck