Puddle Jump Height and Puddle Jump Delay Values

I agree it's probably not something I would really need with a small machine. Probably most hobby users wouldn't but there might be a few and I suspect some of the "business" users out there could see some benefit - Grotius certainly comes to mind. It would bring plasmac closer to what some of the more expensive software is (apparently) doing.

That would definitely be on a different level to do this with a new plasmatask module. I have not gotten into the internal workings of LinuxCNC enough to even do a competent thought experiment on that.

I did look at "wiggle pierce" and "ramp pierce" some time ago but I seem to recall Jim Colt mentioning something along the lines of HT recommending against it as their torches are designed for stationary piercing and also that having motion while piercing increase the amount of molten material blowing back in unknown directions. Which kind makes sense to me.
I wish I could find where I saw that post but I can't at the moment. Anyhow it convinced to not go in that direction.

Actually, I seem to remember seeing something like that too.

A wiggle would be pretty easy to achieve in hal. You could create a sine wave using siggen and apply it to the Z (or Y) axis external offset either for a specific time delay or for the duration of the pierce delay. This could be achieved outside of plasmac.

I gotta think about the other one (ramp).

I had a look at a ramp pierce in Sheetcam but could not see anything obvious had changed in the gcode.

phillc54 wrote: I did look at "wiggle pierce" and "ramp pierce" some time ago but I seem to recall Jim Colt mentioning something along the lines of HT recommending against it as their torches are designed for stationary piercing and also that having motion while piercing increase the amount of molten material blowing back in unknown directions.

That sums up my experience as well. Piercing thick plate (20-25mm) at the best of times produces molten metal spray in all kinds of directions, Adding motion to it would in my opinion make the situation much worse.

I have been having problems with 20mm plate spraying molten metal from piercing holes over the external cuts area of parts, When the torch is cutting the external part at cut height it hits the molten metal and causes a fault. I am not exactly sure how to deal with this yet but at least the molten metal is in the same spot every time. Making the spray unpredictable would in my experience make the situation much worse.

The book Hyperthem setting have worked well for me piercing metals from 1.6mm up to 25mm.

I recall reading something where in that situation you could do a first run where you just do the pierces then clean the sheet then do a second run for the cuts.

Interesting information. I had not really thought about this at all until I was setting up my materials and saw the puddle jump options. Sounds like just a simple pierce is the way to go.

I also remember reading about doing a first pass to complete all the pierces and then going back to do the cuts in a second pass.

Thanks for everyone's input!

Steven