plasma firing issue

[kbenz]

I have an old TM1. hypertherm 600. no AVHC. recently it has started this. it will go to the first pierce, fire, then go out. I back it up try again. sometimes it fires and goes. sometimes I have to back up a couple times. once I get through that initial problem its all good after that. Any ideas? Thanks in advance

[Marty]

When I have that problem it is caused by an in complete or dirty or not attached ground cable and or ground clamp from the material being cut to the plasma cutter ground high voltage ground socket

double check ground clamps and termination points of ground coductor

i use a scotch brite pad to clean the area where my ground clamp connects to the material

I use a magnetic ground clamp and I also scotch bright the contacts areas on the clamp itself as well

in other words make sure the material is grounded back to the plasma cutter

good luck, hope this helps


Marty

[kbenz]

I will try that. It's only on the initial pierce though. after that it is fine

[Marty]

Another cause I occasionally with that problem is the Z axis software limit is reached, which results in a firing of the torch for a couple of seconds, then stops.............with the torch several inches above the sheet .............there is a tweak I need to do in the initialization file.......as a temporary fix I manually lower the Z axis closer to the plate and restart

edit add
problem with z axis limit issue causing misfire resolved by Kelly at Win CNC.......tweaked ini and torch on Mac file.......whew!