Hi,

We are trying to setup our plasma gantry and was the time to look for a suitable THC. As far as I see CandCNC no longer sells stand alone THC only in a package/kit and from the US so we decided to go with PoKeys57CNC motion controller.
It's been 5 months and we still have issues with the plasma. I thought it's time to seek some advice.
We have a Hypertherm 45XP and running on Mach3 (paid license).

When we bought this device we saw that their plasma plugin is only in "experimental" state but we've been positive about this and hoped that it is going to work out of box. Unfortunately we were struggling from the beggining.
Their user manual is extensive but still quite basic. Plenty of information but eventually it gives very little guidance on settings. It provides just general info of their plugin but settings, options are not explained at all. We didn't know what option to select or opt and why.
We stepped further a little by contacting support and asking questions each time however Im not sure how this works out for them instead of adding working examples to their PDF.

I don't want to go through all problems we were having rather just point straight to where we are at at the moment.

Currently we have 3 problems.

1. Dwell time problem. In their plugin we should be able to add pierce delay (dwell) but the output is always in seconds and never in milliseconds regardless we use whole numbers or decimals eg. 0.1, 0.01. The output is always 1 or 2, 3 seconds. This causes a huge burn at piercing.
Yes we are aware of Mach3 Config ---> General Config choose G04 Dwell in ms option but it changes nothing. Output is always in seconds. We have contacted their support and although they always reply and try to help this hasn't been resolved and they didn't answer this problem.

2. I don't think this issue is Pokeys related but we have made a simple drawing that we try to cut on a 1mm mild steel. This must be Mach3 related but we just cannot find what causes this problem. Here is a drawing below that we used to generate G-code from Sheetcam:

Attachment 419012

Mach3 recognises the holes and simulates the movement however the results have been pretty terrific:

Attachment 419014

We started to wonder that the practical output could be different and this is why we never get a decent holes. We used a pencil on a paper and run the code again:

Attachment 419016

It shows that the biggest (20mm) and the smallest (5mm) holes are drawn by X and Y but the 10mm and 6mm holes are distorted and this is why we got quite bad results on the sheet metal.
Does anyone have any idea what causes this problem? Ive attached the G-code.
Code:
N0010 (Filename: 5cm-test-2.tap)
N0020 (Post processor: Mach3 flame with THC - G31.scpost)
N0030 (Date: 23/04/2019)
N0040 G21 (Units: Metric)
N0050 G53 G90 G40
N0060 F1
N0070 S500
N0080 (Part: 5cm-test-2)
N0090 (Process: Outside Offset, 0, T1: 1mm Mild - FineCut - Slow nozzle)
N0100 M06 T1  (1mm Mild - FineCut - Slow nozzle)
N0110 G00 X13.5848 Y29.7165 Z10.0000
N0120 G31 Z -100 F500.0
N0130 G92 Z-0.0800
N0140 G00 Z1.4000
N0150 M03
N0160 G01 X13.5848 Y29.7165 Z0.6000 F1000
N0170 G03 X17.4248 Y25.8765 I3.8400 J0.0000 F6000.0
N0180 X17.4248 Y25.8765 I0.0000 J9.7000
N0190 X19.4107 Y26.0820 I0.0000 J9.7000
N0200 M05
N0210 G00 Z10.0000
N0220 X15.5400 Y13.6451
N0230 Z1.4000
N0240 M03
N0250 G01 Z0.6000 F1000
N0260 Y11.2451 F6000
N0270 G03 X15.5400 Y11.2451 I0.0000 J2.2000 F6000.0
N0280 X17.2757 Y12.0932 I0.0000 J2.2000
N0290 M05
N0300 G00 Z10.0000
N0310 X35.9414 Y12.2332
N0320 Z1.4000
N0330 M03
N0340 G01 Z0.6000 F1000
N0350 Y9.2332 F6000
N0360 G03 X35.9414 Y9.2332 I0.0000 J2.7000 F6000.0
N0370 X37.7634 Y9.9407 I0.0000 J2.7000
N0380 M05
N0390 G00 Z10.0000
N0400 X39.1000 Y35.9943
N0410 Z1.4000
N0420 M03
N0430 G01 Z0.6000 F1000
N0440 Y30.9943 F6000
N0450 G03 X39.1000 Y30.9943 I0.0000 J4.7000 F6000.0
N0460 X41.0402 Y31.4134 I0.0000 J4.7000
N0470 M05
N0480 G00 Z10.0000
N0490 X54.1400 Y3.8400
N0500 Z1.4000
N0510 M03
N0520 G01 Z0.6000 F1000
N0530 G03 X50.3000 Y0.0000 I0.0000 J-3.8400 F6000.0
N0540 G01 Y-3.3000 F6000
N0550 X53.3000 Y-0.3000
N0560 X-3.3000
N0570 X-0.3000 Y-3.3000
N0580 Y53.3000
N0590 X-3.3000 Y50.3000
N0600 X53.3000
N0610 X50.3000 Y53.3000
N0620 Y-3.3000
N0630 X53.3000 Y-0.3000
N0640 X48.4712
N0650 M05
N0660 G00 Z10.0000
N0670 M05 M30
3. Today we wanted to run a simple test by cutting a straight line. Once the line is end to end the other moves back over the initial cut and turns off.
Each test shows some sort of delay. X,Y seem to stop earlier than torch would switch off. I think there must be a delay somewhere we just dont know what or what causes it.
Is it normal on thin metal or we missed some settings within Mach3? I assume this also contributes to the huge pierce delay (-> huge pierce hole) even when we don't have pierce delay set at all.

Attachment 419018

We asked Polabs. They claim that there is a delay in the pipeline of Mach3 that results delays but Im sceptical about it since others use Mach3 with plasma and they have pretty decent cuts.
I just would like to ask anyone if you can give help or advice that we could try. I really don't need THC recommendations.
Thank you