Scott V
04-30-2005, 06:52 PM
I posted this on the Hobart site and thought I post this here.
It's about a upgrade to my plasma table. I hope other people
with the same table give it a look. It's nice to find some smart
people out in web land. Shoot they are even from Texas!!!
I had no idea. ;)
I kind of got the ball rolling a while back by asking a few questions about my Practical cnc table. I bought my Practical table because it was bigger than a Plasmacam and used the easier to get outside parts for it. The Plasmacam software was better and some other things too.
I really hated the proprietary type stuff on their table. I have been stuggling for a year with mine and I have improved it quite a bit. The torch height control was garbage on mine and cost 1,200.00. Which is cheap compared to some of the better units out. It looks like Tom and a few other guys have upgraded my table for about half that amount. It puts it in a league where many other big money tables are not. I talked to the beta tester and he is really impressed. He owns some high dollar cnc machine tools also.
Here is Tom's comments on the change over.
I promised to get back to several of you with the outcome of the PCNC
to MACH2 conversion. I apologize for the length of the post but
there is a lot of infomation to be passed:
As some of you know we (the designers and builders) of the THC300
took up the challenge of doing a retro fit of a Practical CNC plasma
table from it's WINCNC based controller and PCNC's THC system to the
MACH2 and THC300 combo.
While not without the normal engineering snafus, the conversion was
straight forward, and once the small details in the software setup
(not detailed in the WINCNC software) were worked out, the machine is
performing beyond what we expected. The machine owner and brave soul
Beta Tester was selected because he was not a computer or technical
type and had no interest in having to learn a bunch of electronic
stuff ora bunch of wiring to make things run.
What we discovered over the three day event is that a simple missed
translation on my part caused 95% of the problems (got two pins
reversed on the mappings). After that was sorted out, the system
came up under MACH2 right away with impressive rapids and smooth
motion.
The reaction from the Beta Tester on the THC working with the MACH2
software and using the low cost CAM program SheetCAM was positive to
say the least. The upgrade consisted of:
MACH2 ver 6.11 (license required for THC operation)
Sound Logic buffered Breakout Card
Custom crossover connector for SL card
THC300 Torch Height control
SheetCAM (latest download)
DB25 to DB25 cable
The Beta Tester, at our suggestion, built and installed a simple
floating head for the torch (blueprints will be available) that
allows a dynamic touch-n-go material surface reference. By adding a
simple canned code snip in SheetCAM the reference can be done as
seldom or as often as he desires. Since the Z maintains position at
all times the reference is only needed where the pierce points may be
higher or lower that the original reference.
The true qualtity of the PCNC machine is now evident. The
microstepping Gecko's used in the original design provide for nice
smooth motor control and Mach2's CV (constant velocity) cutting takes
full advantge of the table's smoothness.
The lessons learned from this project are going to be applied to a
plug-n-go retro-fit kit for the PCNC machines that has all of the
needed components and all of the configuration files setup including
custom screens for MACH2. Initially the kits will consist of the
separate components mounted in a housing or enclosure. A detailed
upgrade instruction sheet will be provided. We estimate the normal
shop with a minumum of technical skills can do the retro fit in 4 to
6 hours.
We already have plans if the interest is sufficient to refine it even
further and design a custom PCB that would only require the
connection of 3 cables and the install of MACH2. Most machines will
require a second parallel port be added to the PC which we will
provide with the parameters already setup in MACH2.
If you own a PCNC WINCNC based machine (or one of the older Flashcut
versions) and want to discuss the upgrade further, please contact me
directly through the group listed e-mail. I will post some pictures
in the next few days.
Now back to your regularly scheduled progamming (:-)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CncManualPlasmacutting/?yguid=82702294
It's about a upgrade to my plasma table. I hope other people
with the same table give it a look. It's nice to find some smart
people out in web land. Shoot they are even from Texas!!!
I had no idea. ;)
I kind of got the ball rolling a while back by asking a few questions about my Practical cnc table. I bought my Practical table because it was bigger than a Plasmacam and used the easier to get outside parts for it. The Plasmacam software was better and some other things too.
I really hated the proprietary type stuff on their table. I have been stuggling for a year with mine and I have improved it quite a bit. The torch height control was garbage on mine and cost 1,200.00. Which is cheap compared to some of the better units out. It looks like Tom and a few other guys have upgraded my table for about half that amount. It puts it in a league where many other big money tables are not. I talked to the beta tester and he is really impressed. He owns some high dollar cnc machine tools also.
Here is Tom's comments on the change over.
I promised to get back to several of you with the outcome of the PCNC
to MACH2 conversion. I apologize for the length of the post but
there is a lot of infomation to be passed:
As some of you know we (the designers and builders) of the THC300
took up the challenge of doing a retro fit of a Practical CNC plasma
table from it's WINCNC based controller and PCNC's THC system to the
MACH2 and THC300 combo.
While not without the normal engineering snafus, the conversion was
straight forward, and once the small details in the software setup
(not detailed in the WINCNC software) were worked out, the machine is
performing beyond what we expected. The machine owner and brave soul
Beta Tester was selected because he was not a computer or technical
type and had no interest in having to learn a bunch of electronic
stuff ora bunch of wiring to make things run.
What we discovered over the three day event is that a simple missed
translation on my part caused 95% of the problems (got two pins
reversed on the mappings). After that was sorted out, the system
came up under MACH2 right away with impressive rapids and smooth
motion.
The reaction from the Beta Tester on the THC working with the MACH2
software and using the low cost CAM program SheetCAM was positive to
say the least. The upgrade consisted of:
MACH2 ver 6.11 (license required for THC operation)
Sound Logic buffered Breakout Card
Custom crossover connector for SL card
THC300 Torch Height control
SheetCAM (latest download)
DB25 to DB25 cable
The Beta Tester, at our suggestion, built and installed a simple
floating head for the torch (blueprints will be available) that
allows a dynamic touch-n-go material surface reference. By adding a
simple canned code snip in SheetCAM the reference can be done as
seldom or as often as he desires. Since the Z maintains position at
all times the reference is only needed where the pierce points may be
higher or lower that the original reference.
The true qualtity of the PCNC machine is now evident. The
microstepping Gecko's used in the original design provide for nice
smooth motor control and Mach2's CV (constant velocity) cutting takes
full advantge of the table's smoothness.
The lessons learned from this project are going to be applied to a
plug-n-go retro-fit kit for the PCNC machines that has all of the
needed components and all of the configuration files setup including
custom screens for MACH2. Initially the kits will consist of the
separate components mounted in a housing or enclosure. A detailed
upgrade instruction sheet will be provided. We estimate the normal
shop with a minumum of technical skills can do the retro fit in 4 to
6 hours.
We already have plans if the interest is sufficient to refine it even
further and design a custom PCB that would only require the
connection of 3 cables and the install of MACH2. Most machines will
require a second parallel port be added to the PC which we will
provide with the parameters already setup in MACH2.
If you own a PCNC WINCNC based machine (or one of the older Flashcut
versions) and want to discuss the upgrade further, please contact me
directly through the group listed e-mail. I will post some pictures
in the next few days.
Now back to your regularly scheduled progamming (:-)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CncManualPlasmacutting/?yguid=82702294