Hand Held vs machine torch

[Largemouthlou]

When I was buying my diy kit I was told to go with the hand held torch...

Have a hypertherm 1250 and was wondering if the reason I can't get my CnCandC DTHC to work is because I have the hand held torch??
Is the trigger not being over ridden??

Pulled my hair out looking at wires for e weekends now could it be I have the wrong torch head??

[rock4xfab]

It should not matter. What exactly is the problem.. I have Toms kit and just finished my table build other then a small bit of tweaking. Mine is working perfect.. Although I did read the instructions quite a few times and checked things off as I went along during setup.. The card you mounted for control of the plasma cutter should be tied directly into the switch points in the Hypertherm, and all that does is fire the torch and get an Ark ok signal..and read volts back to mach to set the height chasing the Volt arc signal.

[Largemouthlou]

Problem I'm having is that it won't fire the torch when I hit torch on in the mach screen, it clicks and the light goes on on the board but no fire.

I have re wired the dang thing 5 different ways starting from placing the red, yellow, white and black wires under the existing wires in the screw block on the Hypertherm, to splicing into them, to finally taking the factory wires off the screw block cause they go to an unused pin plug and direct wiring the DTHC card to the terminal block on the 1250..

I get arc okay if I cross the 2 pins and get the flashing lights when I hit the test button on the side of the control box..

Talked to Tom on the yahoo chat board and he swears the thing isn't wired right, that was before I did all of the above...

Have had others ck the wiring and they say it is correct..

Gonna look at it one more time if I can get back to the shop this week then guess I will post it on the yahoo board for Tom to tell me it is wired wrong again..

[jimcolt]

The remote start signal that is accessible on the rear panel receptacle, and on the inside terminal strip is not functional when the hand torch is installed. If the machine torch is installed the remote start will function. This is a safety feature so that someone does not accidentally fire the hand torch from a remote switch....a dangerous situation that in at least one case caused a major fire.

If you need to use the hand torch on a machine application...you will have to splice into the hand torch trigger wiring to bypass the safety trigger functions. This is relatively easy to do, however I cannot tell you how to do it as I work for Hypertherm, and you will be bypassing a safety function that is mandatory on all of our systems. I would suggest reviewing the connections with Tom at CandCNC.

Jim Colt

[Largemouthlou]

Thank you for the explanation Jim!! I totally understand and know how to "hot wire " it now but will be buying a mini torch very soon as to stay safe.. Sure wish simple instructions such as this was in the DIY manuals!!! Wasted about 3 weekends playing with this problem on and off..