sheetcam.com

Hi all

New on the forum have just set myself up with a swifty 1250 table hypertherm 45xp

cam software that comes with table is damn horrible so been playing with sheetcam liking it so far

my question is i have been setting up tools out of the hypertherm manual and some of the voltages for the thc on thin sheets are around the 78v range but sheetcam keeps defaulting them to 100v, am i doing something wrong? or just clueless lol

Cheers Dave

Not sure what your doing, but there is nowhere in Sheetcam for entering voltage values (or amps for that matter). On THC, you enter the voltage value to maintain your proper cut height (usually .06 with the Hypertherm). Depending on your setup, these values can very from the Hypertherm cut charts. You adjust the voltage to whatever it takes to maintain the desired cut height.

It's been a while since I set up my tool table, but if I remember right, you can't add/change the values in the tool table directly. Instead you have to make a new tool by choosing "Create a new Jet cutting tool" in the "Tools" menu.

Steve

Do you have a setting in the tool window for volts?
This setting comes from the post processor as an extra option. The variable in the post may be setup incorrectly causing it to default to an incorrect value.
What post are you using?

Do you have a THC that can be controlled from gcode? If not, then the volt settings aren't going to be of any use.

With each tool you input there is indeed a voltage and amps column

Hence the question why it only lets me go as low as 100v when fine cut settings go as low as 78v

Which post processor are you using. The setting is in the post. It provides the range. You can modify the post to allow lower values.

Probably the most modified / altered post processor that I know of is that from CandCNC which you can learn a lot from reading that post processor:

latest ones are available for download from their website here: https://www.candcnc.net/downloads/

below is an extract of a custom tool parameter for the Plasma Tool, which allows you to set the voltage from 0 to 200 with a default value of 49
Post processor documentation extract below:

DefineCustomToolParam(toolClass,caption,varName,units,default,min,max)
Adds an extra parameter to a tool definition.
toolClass is the tool class name. See the toolClass variable for a description of tool classes
default is the default value. Note that values are always in METRIC for linear units, RADIANS for angular units and a decimal fraction for percentage e.g 0.1 = 10%
The rest of the syntax is as DefineVariable above.

Its probably worth noting that defining a new parameter does nothing unless the post processor is coded to do something with it / insert the code somewhere.

hi

yes my post processor takes these voltages and amps direct from the tool table

Thanks Robertspark

Modified that line in my post processor and it fixed this issue

cheers