flashcut for cnc plasma

[woodman08]

have a bunch of photos

[woodman08]

few more

[datac]

If your having "trouble" with Flashcut, its not going to be something with the program. The majority of problems can be traced down to motor control settings and the feedrate/ramping details. There were in the past some minor hardware incompatibility issues, but any release in the last 5 years has taken care of that with more specific adjustments to command oddball motor drivers.

It is difficult to troubleshoot any ones machine without really being there, and with Flashcut in particular, it is almost always improper settings that are the main source of complaints. You really need to be patient in solving your issues because the program is truly one of the most fantastic out there, and always tested thoroughly before any release is made public. You will not find "features" displayed that do not really work.

All that said, I cant stress enough for those who have troubles with travel rates or positional loss to open the MANUAL and slowly walk thru the excellent "Initial Setup" section. It is real easy to skip thru the details written there, I know, I too have done such. But, if you actually step thru page by page and iron out each step before moving to the next, you can solve 99% of any problems.

I've noticed that you are set to run 1000ipm. It appears that your ramping rate is set really tight for that, but perhaps your machine can handle it. If not, it could explain why that letter "P" cut short (step loss) I also think that your continuous contouring rate is set rather low based on that 1000ipm. This would cause it to slow considerably thru mixed geometry.

If I were you, I would take a step back and drop that maximum feed rate down to 300-400 and get the issues ironed out, then work your way up to see exactly how fast you can run successfully.

I use FC on a small, basic plasma setup and couldn't be more thrilled. I've used the other controls and have not been as thrilled. The Flashcut version 4 release is right around the corner, and frankly, they have added so many new controls, methods and techniques to control various machines its almost mind boggling.

Stick with it... go thru that manual one step at a time and you'll get it figured out. Its always easy to get greedy for speed.... But, every machine will have definite limits and you MUST work your way up from the bottom to understand where they are.