Help with adding PlasmaC to base config + 7i76e

In subdirectory Linuxcnc configs and the directory of your plasmac config

Use in console
grep -i -r -C 5 textosearch --color=always | less -SR

This will show all found textosearch in all files in this directory

Did you see such halscope? forum.linuxcnc.org/plasma-laser/38636-va...ide?start=110#161968

Check these pins I was told!had the same problem.
forum.linuxcnc.org/plasma-laser/38636-va...ride?start=70#161827

Plasmaguy wrote: I got an arc-ok signal by wiring in the arc-ok leads from my 45XP to my 7i76e and then adding:

net plasmac:arc-ok-in => hm2_7i76e.0.encoder.00.velocity => plasmac.arc-ok-in

to my machine.connections file and switching the .ini to "1" for mode 1.

So I am up and running 100% now in Mode 1. Thanks for everyone's help along the way!

That doesn't seem right, it should be using an input pin, not the velocityo pin, something like:
The velocity pin should be:

Plasmaguy wrote:
Do I need to add another line to my machine.connections and/or machine.hal file(s) to make it work?

Like: net plasmac:arc-ok => hm2_7i76e.0.encoder.00.velocity => plasmac.arc-ok-in ?

Yes but that is way wrong

Phill has ashowed you how to do it. Something like
Physical wiring needs to take field power and connect it to one of the AcOK pins in your circular connector.
The other pin on that connector needs to be connected to an input (input 30 in the example)
SO what happens is when the plasma cutter sees a valid arc, it will close a relay inside the plasma cutter and that will switch field power to the input.

That doesn't seem right, it should be using an input pin, not the velocityo pin, something like:

You're right.. sorry about that, I did not catch this oversight until now that I report back about how my machine is running. I will correct my previous post.

I ran some simple squares and everything is great.

Happy with that I go ahead and run my first part...several hundred pierces and a few thousand inches of cutting.



Here I'm plasma cutting irregular shapes...grass. Tons of voltage changes going on and Plasmac handles it all perfectly up through about the 80th pierce point.

As you see there is some discrepancy in the arc shutoff delay. No big deal, it hasn't adversely affected anything (yet).

Specifically @:

0:15
1:27
1:48
2:27
2:57
3:05
3:15
3:25
3:58

After the video is over once I got to about the 80th cut, halfways through it the THC sends the torch flying up to the upper limit and shuts off & pauses. Send it through to the next cut and now the torch is crashing down into the sheet about 2 seconds after the arc initializes. Tried again, same result. I checked the torch itself thinking maybe a piece of slag is stuck in there, but it's free & clear.

I'm going to do some more test pieces to see what I can figure out before I try to continue on finishing out the rest of this sheet. Any pointers are greatly appreciated!

My biggest question at this point (besides the thc issue) is how many of the run/config settings are editable "on the fly" i.e. while the machine is running? Can the THC can be enabled & disabled in the middle of a cut? Can I change the pierce height, pierce delay, etc on the fly?

Edit: Here are a couple more videos to show what's going on with my THC, it wants to lift immediately after the 1.5 second THC delay. The voltage is set @ 125v so that's understandable as the arc stabilizes around 123v after pierce, I just don't know why it's wanting to "overcorrect" like that.

Those arc off delays are odd, if you know how to use Halscope you could determine whether the issue is within PlasmaC or not.

Pretty much all the cut parameters can be changed on the fly except feed rate as that is read from gcode.

You can enable/disable THC with g-code as well:
linuxcnc.org/docs/2.8/html/plasma/plasmac-user-guide.html#_thc

Do you have Auto Volts enabled in the Run Panel.

When PlasmaC goes to maximum height and pauses then it should give an error message in the bottom right of Axis.