Tom,
The last few days I have cut about 4 full sheets of parts, 2 out of the 4 sheets I had 100% yield with no operator intervention.
You can see in the picture the cleats that did not cut properly out of second last sheet. That was caused by me being lazy and seeing if I could get the rest of the sheet out when the electrode started playing up and not changing it. The other sheet I had problems with was because I nested parts to close together in sheet cam and the lead ins clashed into other parts, that was 100% my fault.
So overall it is never the controller playing up, more so the consumables wearing out.
My last controller was from CandCNC and I had nothing but problems with it. I would suggest anyone looking for a controller to get help on this forum to build their own before buying that junk. I spent over $11,000 AUD on the system and it never worked correctly from the start. Getting help from them was like pulling teeth. But the biggest reason I stopped using it was the owner treating me like an idiot when I pointed out things that did not work. With PlasmaC, Phill is always happy to help out as well as others on the forum, and they are not even making money from this!
Rate of failure is low. Mostly it is a float switch tripped error from a tipped up part that happens on sheets with smaller parts.
Comfort of using the machine is high. I have built a console for my electronics, I have a isolator switch on the side of the unit that when I turn it on the computer starts up and the controller power turns on without having to press any other buttons. I then turn the power on to the plasma unit, then load PlasmaC, turn the motors on and home the machine. It is then ready to load the g-code file. I then load the plate, and touch off.Then check the consumables and I am ready to cut.
I am in the middle of working with Phill to test out the Hypertherm RS485 integration with PlasmaC. When we have that working we will no longer need to set the current or air pressure on machines with a RS485 port. Should be a big help.
