Pierce delay

Problems and questions
1

I am setting a pierce delay of 0.1s in sheetcam then feeding this to mach3 on a DIY plasma table but the torch is dwelling far longer, maybe 1-2s and making a mess.

Is there a default minimum or is 0.1s just not achievable??

The torch manual specifies 0.3s but that will be even more.

Thanks

2

In Mach3 go to Config->ports and pins->spindle setup. Make sure all of the spin up and spin down delay are set to 0. Next go to Config->general config and make sure ‘G04 dwell in ms’ is not checked. After that dwells should work correctly.

3

Thanks les, I’m sure that’s the answer, I will check tomorrow.

4

well, both of those settings were indeed set, i have now unchecked and set the spin-downs to zero but I am still getting way too much pierce delay?

Even setting pierce delay to zero gives at least a second in which time the torch burns a big hole and starts complaining.

Are there any other checks I can do?

5

That’s odd. Do you have THC? If so, is the ‘arc good’ signal being delayed for some reason?

6

No THC yet but I think I’ve cracked it.

The plunge rate was set to 100mm-min which is very leisurely so what i presumed was waiting time was really plunging time.

I’ve upped it to 350mm/min now and seems much happier.

Those settings helped though.

Thanks