MYPLASM THC,OHMIC SENS, AND MAT SENSING

[MDGCompany]

Good day to all,
I am in the process of upgrading my plasma table, here are the original Specs;
1) 4' x 8' Table with 3/8" Supports and a water table.
2) Older Gen 1 or 2 Torchmate controller with no THC
3) There was a Z axis DC motor and a gear drive mech for the torch height control, however this was manual with a significant amount of backlash.
4) An older Thermal Dynamics 80XL plasma source. HF start 60 amp 230V source.
5) An older torch head that I can no longer get consumables for. I scoured the internet for hours looking.

Upgrades
1) Myplasm controller
2) nema23 Stepper/Servos- Closed Loop with 5x1 Planetary gear reducers.
3) New Zaxis stage with a nema 23 closed loop stepper/servo
4) New hypertherm torch head. I selected this because eventually I will switch to a Hypertherm Source.
5) Laser Cross Indicator

Issues
1) Hypertherm torch head
a) PROBLEM - The Hypertherm has what I believe is a 3AN fitting and my original power cable is a 5/16" or 1/4" inverted flare fitting.
a) SOLVED - I solved this by going to the auto parts store and finding brass fittings that fit both then drilling out the one and soldering the two
together.
2) What pitch is my current Rack for the axis drives?
a) PROBLEM - I was not sure how to determine what I had and there was no any clear information on line.
b) SOLUTON - I learned that you just measure the number of teeth in 3.14" and that gives you the correct pitch of the gears.
3) Planetary gear reducers have a 14mm shaft.
a) PROBLEM - I cannot seem to locate a pinion gear with the proper SHAFT BORE.
b) SOLUTION - I ordered the correct pinion gears from MCMaster Carr and had the shafts of the planetary reducers cut to fit.
4) Z-Axis Mounting
a) PROBLEM - The stage I ordered from Aliexpress and the adjustable Torch Mount would be too long and reduce my table size due to the length
of the assembly.
b) SOLUTION - I disassembled the Torch mount and only used the break away part mounted onto the new stage.
5) THC, OHMIC, and Material Sensing
a) Problem - I want to be able to accurately sense the material, even light gauge stuff. So this is the part I cannot seem to get beyond.

I know that Myplasm can use both Ohmic and the break away function to locate material and that Ohmic and the Voltage THC can be active simultaneously. I am sure that this will require a macro in order to set the Z axis to zero once the material has been detected.
does anyone have any knowledge of how that this is accomplished or have any experience with this?
I am hoping that I will be able to get everything set up and running in the next couple of weeks. My final brackets that I need to mount the new motors will arrive this coming week. After this we will get the motors mounted and get the drives setup.

[DieselFumes]

I suspect that with an ohmic sensing system designed into your controller it will reset zero for you when it touches the material. I doubt you will need to create a custom macro. Have you got your brackets and everything set up yet?

[acourtjester]

What you may be looking for is a postprocessor the has the Ohmic sensor and THC options incorporated in it. The reason is they are 2 different functions. The Ohmic sensor is to detect the metals surface and then move the torch to the correct pierce height. These are done with lines of code and the Ohmic sensor connected to a separate input pin on the controller.
The THC does not take effect until the torch has fired and started to move away from the pierce location, and drops to the cut height. There is a delay to allow the pierce to complete though the metal. The cut height is also in the G-code and the THC has a delay to allow the arc voltage to stabilize before the THC starts it's action to control the torch distance above the metal as it cuts.