Multicam 1000/Powermax 85 not piercing on program start

[Garrett060]

Hi everybody,

I'm new to this forum and to CNC plasma cutting. I have a 2006 Multicam 1000 with a Hypertherm Powermax 85 and am using Shop Data Systems as my nesting/cam software. The issue I'm having is that when I load a program into the machine (I've ran several programs) and click start, the torch lowers down to the material, attempts to pierce but doesn't. At this point I have to pause or cancel the program and run it again till it pierces and starts to cut (usually 2 or 3 attempts). The weird thing is that once the program finally starts to cut it runs the rest of the sheet/program perfectly fine (starting and stopping many pierces and cuts throughout). Is there something I'm overlooking? My guess is that it's a coding issue, but I'm not sure how to check that. Any help is appreciated.

*I've tried cutting various thickness' of steel in the 0.030"-0.060" range
**Air pressure is set to 75psi on the Powermax (tried higher and lower)
***I'm using 45 amp fine-cut consumables (tried adjusting amperage lower and higher as well)
****I don't have ATHC, the machine uses an air cylinder/plate rider setup instead

Thanks for the help

[weldguy]

When this problems happens do you see an error code in the lower left corner of your PM85's LCD screen? for example 0-21

[Garrett060]

When it starts the program each time and I have the issue, the fault light usually comes on and shows the 0-19 Power board hardware protection fault code. It looks like the torch goes to start the arc/pierce and then just quits (which is why I think it might be a programming/coding issue from my cam software?). What I don't understand though is that after a few attempts at restarting the program it cuts fine. And the program I've been running starts and stops the cutting arc 20-30 throughout the one sheet of material and does all of those pierces/start and stops just fine.