Beginner Plasmac Questions

I'm trying to run a single cut from the Run tab, when I click start cut the z travels to it's soft max limit then stops and then does nothing. My buttons are greyed out and I have turn machine off and on again to get back control. I assume this has something to do with the fact that I don't have any z limit switches yet. Am I missing something or is it something I can get around until my z limits are installed?

Also, does the "probe test" automatically set the probe travel or is the probe travel something I have to do manually?

phillc54 wrote:

tommylight wrote: Try the buster version from here, it should work:
pkgs.org/download/dxf2gcode

Thanks Tom, it install and opens but it crashes on every dxf file I tried. I went back as far as release 12 DXF but still no go. I do remember using it years ago.

Are you certain those are 2D dxf files ? It will not open anything with 3D stuff in it.

tommylight wrote:

phillc54 wrote:

tommylight wrote: Try the buster version from here, it should work:
pkgs.org/download/dxf2gcode

Thanks Tom, it install and opens but it crashes on every dxf file I tried. I went back as far as release 12 DXF but still no go. I do remember using it years ago.

Are you certain those are 2D dxf files ? It will not open anything with 3D stuff in it.

Definitely, one is a circle and one is a rectangle. Both done in Qcad.

AgentWD40 wrote: I'm trying to run a single cut from the Run tab, when I click start cut the z travels to it's soft max limit then stops and then does nothing. My buttons are greyed out and I have turn machine off and on again to get back control. I assume this has something to do with the fact that I don't have any z limit switches yet. Am I missing something or is it something I can get around until my z limits are installed?

Does the machine Pause or Stop.
If you run LinuxCNC from a terminal do you get any error messages.

Also, does the "probe test" automatically set the probe travel or is the probe travel something I have to do manually?

Probe test uses the probe parameters from the Config panel. It will probe at the current X/Y coordinates. The only variable to set in the ini file is the probe time, see Probe Test here:
linuxcnc.org/docs/2.8/html/plasma/plasma...de.html#_button_code

phillc54 wrote: Definitely, one is a circle and one is a rectangle. Both done in Qcad.

Have not use QCAD in quite a while, but when saving a dxf it should have a choice for saving it as an 2D autocad R14 version, that is the only version that worked with dxf2gcode when i was testing it some years ago.

phillc54 wrote: Does the machine Pause or Stop.
If you run LinuxCNC from a terminal do you get any error messages.

Well I came back to it this morning and I have no idea why but it just worked... So yay!

First test cut using the extras panel attached below.

How do I get these parts to start at where I jog the torch to? When I hit run the machine insisted on starting from machine coord 0,0. I tried G92 X0 Y0 but that didn't work.

[EDIT]
Nevermind, I figured it out. Touchoff for x and y. For some reason I was just thinking the touchoff button was for z.