Smoothing Lines

[316 Equipment]

Any advice on how to get plasma table to move more fluidly? I have smoothing turned on and it helps but it still pauses for a fraction of a second when it reaches a point or when cutting from a straight line into to an arc. My table brand is Cutting Edge Robotic Technologies and is linux cnc based. Any advice is appreciated, Thanks.

[acourtjester]

You have something loose in the drive assembly, If you can see the pause you know which axis it the problem.
Attaching an ink pen to the torch and drawing on a paper really helps to find these problems better than wasting metal. There are posts here to see how many did the same thing, use the search function in the upper right to find them.

[adbuch]

It sounds like you may have mechanical issues. For example - loose or worn gears, belts, or loose setscrews. Do you feel any slop or movement when you have the motors powered, table idle, and you attempt to move either the gantry or carriage by hand?
David

[robertspark]

? I have smoothing turned on .....

what is smoothing?

are you referring to constant velocity?

what are your G64 parameters?

[Rodw]

Any advice on how to get plasma table to move more fluidly? I have smoothing turned on and it helps but it still pauses for a fraction of a second when it reaches a point or when cutting from a straight line into to an arc. My table brand is Cutting Edge Robotic Technologies and is linux cnc based. Any advice is appreciated, Thanks.

I don't think this is a Linuxcnc problem. I think you are coming up against the laws of physics here. It is physically impossible to change direction without coming to a halt. I think your acceleration could be too low.

OR:

As Robert mentioned the G64 settings define how far away from the programmed path the motion controller is allowed to be. If there are none set, corners will be quite rounded becasue the motion planner will keep to the programmed velocity and leave the path. But if your settings are too tight (eg maybe G64 settings are for millimetres but your table is set up for inches), no deviation will be allowed and therefore velocity will be reduced to nothing.

With LinuxCNC, velocity and acceleration are set in a text file ending in .ini. If you can find that, somebody might be able to help here but the linuxcnc forum would be a better place to trouble shoot.