Having trouble with programming plate marker

[ajk2004]

Good evening everyone,
I am just finishing up building my own CNC machine. I have the C and CNC blade runner with sheetcam and Mach 3. The only thing I have got to yet is I made a circle in Inkscape, brought it to sheetcam, exported the g code to Mach 3 and ran the program and watched my gantry move as if it was cutting. I don't have my plasma hooked up yet, want to know how everything works mechanically before I do that. I have a plate market ready to go but have NO idea how to set it up. I created the tool in sheetcam. When I add the operation and it creates the tool path, i think I am good and I run the post processor. When I get into Mach and hit run, it will move my gantry around like it wants to use my torch. I don't know if this is a Mach question or a c and CNC question. I just don't know where to start. Im not even sure how to check outputs on my c and CNC box. If I manually turn the relay auxiliary on you can hear it click so I know it is working but I don't know how to set it up that the program, either sheetcam or Mach will read the code and turn the solenoid on/off accordingly. Thanks for the help.
Andy

[Les Newell]

To work a scriber correctly the post needs to know a few things about the scriber such as it's offset from the torch.

In SheetCam go to Options->machine->post processor and click on the 'Edit post' button. Near the start of the file you will probably see a bunch of configuration options. Do any of these options mention a scriber? If not the post is probably not configured for scribing. Tom produces his own posts to go with his controllers so you may need to ask him for a suitable post.

[sphurley]

You don't mention if you have the Ethernet or parralell version but Tom's post that work have "DTHCII & DTHC IV post processor with/without Plate marker" listed. I'm using : rev 11M1 at the moment. And as Les says you have to "edit" the post to put in your offsets from the torch center line.

[sphurley]

Look for this in the Post Processor when you get ready to edit

--Scriber X,Y,Z offsets in MILLIMETRES. Do not use inches here even if you want inch code
--For the marker use the scriber Z as the offset from Z zero you want the Z to move to during a scribe.
--Change these values to suit your scriber setup
scriberX = -0.408
scriberY = 48.00
scriberZ = 15.00
--scriber axis. Leave this as nil if the scriber is fixed to the same axis as the torch
scriberAxis = nil

--this value when set to "true" will set the Z to lift to rapid height between paths when using the marker tool.
--if false it will not lift the Z between paths but will at the end
markerZ = true
drillZ = .250