More Z-Axis Issues
- MakingStuff
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I am having problems with my machine losing the arc at the end of a cut. I have tried to cut the same thing 3 different times and it always fails in the same spot. It is at the very end of the cut, when the piece falls into the water pan I get the error. I call also see which line the gcode fails on and its always the line right before M5 to turn off the torch.
This causes all sorts of z-axis issues because when I hit resume, LinuxCNC almost never resumes. Maybe one out of 20 tries it will actually resume. When this happens, all of the axis freeze and I can't move the gantry at all. The only way I have found to resume is to hit the Z Move To Top button, then right clicking on the second line of gcode after the line it failed on. The reason I have to click on the second line after the failure is because the next line after M5 is Z0.039. If I right click on it and hit "Run From Here" the z-axis crashes into the work piece, luckily my torch pops out of its holder instead of doing damage.
How can I keep this from happening? I think the main issue is losing the arc signal at the very end of the cut. Is there a way to avoid this? I did not have this problem when running THC-Toma so I don't think it is a THC issue. Is there a way to say wait so many milliseconds after the arc lost signal before throwing the error?
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If you have Z moves, they should have been commented out by the GCode parser. Do they appear commented out in the GCode display in the GUI.?
Could you post the GCode file.
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- MakingStuff
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The arc is always lost on the line before M05. For instance, below it would fail on line 300 and the z-axis will raise up 3 inches. Then I would have to click Move Z To Top to unlock gantry(I think the float switch is causing the gantry to freeze), then I would right click on line 330 and select run from here and cross my fingers that the z-axis doesn't crash or give an error that says float switch tripped while moving to probe height. If I right click line 320 or 310 and select run from here, the z-axis crashes 100% of the time.
N0300 X6.9827 Y7.3268
N0310 M05
N0320 G00 Z0.3937
N0330 X6.2158 Y7.3853
N0340 Z0.0000
N0350 M3 S1
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Here is a postprocessor I worked on a while ago, I think it is ok.
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- MakingStuff
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I went out to the shop and looked and the z-axis lines in the g-code do not appear to be commented out. All of the lines in the g-code window are blue.
I will remove the z-axis commands tomorrow and see if it works any better.
Is there anything that can be done about losing the arc signal?
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- MakingStuff
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[FILTER]
PROGRAM_EXTENSION = .ngc remove z axis stuff
ngc = ./plasmac_gcode.py
I don't understand why it would lose the arc before it had finished a cut. It doesn't make sense to me. Does it happen on every cut?
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Everything is put away for the night. I will try your post processor tomorrow. I was also ale to mdify my post processor to remove the z-axis commands. I will try that too.
I don't think removing the Z axis stuff will affect the arc issue you have, I was just wondering why you did'nt get errors on loading a GCode file.
If you get a chance could you zip your complete config and post it.
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- MakingStuff
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I don't understand why it would lose the arc before it had finished a cut. It doesn't make sense to me. Does it happen on every cut?
No not every cut but each time it fails, the part it was cutting falls into the water pan. So I know that it actually finished the cut.
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- MakingStuff
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I think I know what the issue is. My post processor saves the files with a .tap extension. It appears that the g-code parser is looking for .ngc files. Maybe it is sneaking past validation because it has a different extension?I was just wondering why you did'nt get errors on loading a GCode file.
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