Plasma Cam Z Shift Problems and repetability

[Sandmi]

Hello I have owned a Plasma Cam DHC 2 Samson 5 X 10 Table for the past few years. In a year of owning it an employee of mine used it without permission and sense then it has not worked right since. The table work flawlessly on all of the controls and specified inputs given except for the Z Axis Controls / Z Shift / And Homing. The problem in detail that i am facing is a lack of understanding as too what the Z Shift function does in comparison too the given material thickness and how these are set and saved. If someone could give me a detailed breakdown of how to reset the Z 0.00 ( Machine WCS) for the Z axis and how to set material thicknesses and overall z axis controls per change of material thickness that would be amazing!

I am open too phone calls also, you may contact me via reply of this email or , Mitchell @ 320 290 3409 .

Thank you very much!

[jimcolt]

Mitchell,

Most likely the operator changed a setting in the height control functions. I'm sure nothing is broken.

By far, the best place to solve your Plasmacam issues is on the "Owners Community" at http://www.plasmacam.com . To join you will need the serial number of your Samson machine. There are a few thousand Plasmacam owners that are all very helpful in solving problems. I am pretty sure there is a detailed procedure on the site for adjusting the Z shift.

If you have a shielded torch and the ohmic retaining cap (typically a Hypertherm plasma cutter), you can bypass the z shift process completely and let the ohmic contact function auto calibrate the z axis before each cut. This is the way I have been running my Plasmacam for 9 years, never once have I calibrated the z axis shift. My height control works flawlessly.

If you have the ohmic cap, are using shielded consumables, and have the ohmic wire connected....simply check the box that says: "auto calibrate the z axis on next cut".

Jim Colt

[PlasmaMac]

That screen shot doesn't seem correct (it appears that you may have something completely disabled). Your screen appears to be void of all of the dhc2 features and have the advanced height control features possibly disabled, as well. Are you running plasmacam's Designedge? If so, make sure to activate your Advanced Height Control under the activate levels section (click on the Height Control Box until a dark black check mark appears). When you get things humming again, on plasma cam's ohmic height control, all you have to do is check the three boxes (highlighted below), and that it!!! It is completely hands off after that...it will do absolutely everything, even avoid collisions, automatically zero out from cut to cut and automatically sense your material in between material changes.

HC screen shot.JPG

If you need some one on one guidance, call plasma cam's tech team. They can help you make sure that your HC settings are up to par.

Hope this helps,

JAG