Trying to use the center punch option

[Tom750]

Good morning or afternoon
depending where are you are I am a new user of sheetcam and CNC trying to use the center punch option I create a layer for a center punch when I Run it the first center punch is perfect then it blows through the rest running 19 amps for the center punch operation in 14 gauge steel.
Have crossfire table with Everlast 60 plasma
Tom

[robertspark]

I would suggest as you have a crossfire table (manual z-axis) that you increase for pierce height (try doubling it), and lower your pierce delay to zero.

The problem is, mach3 can be slow to fire and extinguish the torch + as you don't have a controlled Z-axis, you have to set the height manually, you may be ending up with the pierce height being lower in some areas than other areas.

[djreiswig]

Is the post flow air running before your first punch happens? Usually the first torch fire is above the material and wasted to get the post flow air to run. This makes the torch fire quicker for the rest of the punches. Then you might be able to drop your amps to get them to not punch through.

[robertspark]

good point.... forgot about the first pierce always being a priming pierce on a bit of scrap / offcut..... It "seems" (I don't know the real reason) to be that the first pierce preheats the consumables / allows them to expand / free up and all the pierces after that are more uniform.

My advice with increaing the pierce height came from the Hypertherm 45XP manual (which I know you don't have but to a point the ideas / principles could be applied universally.... although the feedrates etc etc may need tweaking to your machine).

have a read around PDF page 117 of this manual:
https://www.hypertherm.com/Download?fil ... &zip=False

This is the cutchart guidance around PDF page 138+139

2020-01-10 20_15_59-Window.png (72.19 KiB) Viewed 733 times

The recommendation is to set the machine on it's minimum current setting (10A) and the dimple height of 0.25".... (just a bit of guidance for you to try)

Oh yeah.... the delay is 0.05 Seconds.... this is VERY short..... the quickest you can fire and stop a torch burst with any time limit with mach3 is 0.1Sec as the macro loops run at 10Hz..... (macro loops in uccnc run at 20 / 25hz so 0.05 sec can be achieved)

the problem of firing the torch without any delay (sleep(100)) is you may get a missfire / different pulse width everytime (YMMV).... good luck

[djreiswig]

It's to get the post flow going. I guess it fires quicker when the post flow is running.