Runaway torch THCAD-10 + PlasmaC + Hypertherm 45XP

My guess is that you are exceeding the count rate capabilities
of your encoder input

I think I will reduce settings on THCAD-10 from F/64 to F/128 and see if it will help.

Might I recommend a nice Mesa 7i96 or similar

Snowgoer - are you delicately suggesting that LPT might not be capable of performing well on counting impulses from THCAD-10?

radek_marko wrote: Snowgoer - are you delicately suggesting that LPT might not be capable of performing well on counting impulses from THCAD-10?

He's not delicate. He's pragmatic. Sure some people have done plasma with a parallel port but given the cost of your 45XP, why would you use non-industrial hardware to save $100? That is a very small percentage of the overall cost of your plasma build project.

Yea, Rod basically hit the nail on the head with what I was getting at.

Hypertherm is arguably the best plasma power source you can buy. The THCAD is extremely capable. So you have basically purchased a Ferrari with the bells and whistles, but then opted to drop in a motor from a 1986 Chevy S10 pickup truck.

I honestly think that while you may get things to work (by limiting the performance), you're causing yourself a lot of unnecessary headaches. Probably just scratching the surface with the THCAD issues.

Did you use a RTAI or the RT_PREEMPT iso? Switching to the 7i96 will require you to switch to a RT_PREEMPT kernel if you are on RTAI. If you're already on RT_PREEMPT, that would be a source of issues for Parallel anyways.

I think your setup uses 2 parallel ports, so I'm not sure if you have a lot of I/O's or what, but if you do, the 7i76e is even more capable yet. That said, most guys can get away with the 7i96 on a plasma table and still have empty I/O's.