Hello
I'm having a terrible time getting a THC to work with Mach4.
My setup is: Floating head Z axis w/ 5mm negative travel, Hypertherm 65, Proma 150, Ethernet Smooth Stepper, and Mach 4 Hobby.
My problem is (I think) with offsets. It seems that sometimes I have a working THC solution, and other times the inputs from the up and down pins are being ignored. Sometimes just the up, sometimes just the down, sometimes both. Confirmed while running G code, MDI, or using the test function on the Proma.
I have set the max and min HC settings in the ESS plugin to be MAX +5 and MIN -5 from the WORK COORDINATES LIMIT. But what I've been noticing is that this seems to be not reliable. Sometimes only the down function works, others only the up. I just cut an entire job watching the THC commanding an upward movement but nothing responded on the table, the Z never lifted while cutting.
Could this be related to the G31 or G92 commands in the G code? I have posted the beginning of the last file I cut below.
Something else that I noticed is the only sure fire way to make the THC work is to enable "IGNORE LIMITS" on the HC tab of the ESS plugin. HOWEVER, and a big however, this is treacherous. I got in a jam earlier this week as the THC was commanding down down down all the while the Z was being torn off. I would really much rather have a working solution that involved setting some limits that I can at least rely on.
Here's the beginning of my code:
N5 G90
N10 G71
(2D Profile5)
N15 G0 X1.5 Y-4.55
N20 G31 Z-100. F3500.
N25 G92 Z-5.
N30 G0 Z18.
N35 G0 Z3.
M62P3
N40 G1 Z0. F3500.
N45 G1 Y-2.25.........
For what its worth, this was post in Fusion 360 with a modified Mach3 script.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
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