How to wire a Price AVHC10 to a UCCNC UCBB breakout board

[The-Meerkat]

My Gecko g540 just didn’t have enough I/O pins to handle all I want to do. I bought a UCCNC bundle deal from CNCDrive to meet my needs. I’m still using the trusty Gecko as my stepper driver board, but now have a new UC300ETH-5LPT and UCBB Dual Port Breakout Board running to my laptop via ethernet. It came with a UCCNC software license too, so I’m almost completely converting over. This is a big improvement and I now have 16 outputs & 18 inputs.

The problem I had for the past several days was trying to figure out how to hook up my Price AvHC10 torch height control to this new UCBB breakout board. The Price manual has 4 diagrams for various boards. None matched what I needed to do. I emailed Price CNC in Scotland, but I’m impatient. The UCBB manual didn’t cover it. Or maybe it did but was too technical and I didn’t get it. Forgive me if it’s in there but written in the Vulcan Electrical Schematic Language. I do not speak V.E.S.L. Nor have I ever visited their planet but I hear it’s warm there.

I set out this afternoon to figure it out on my own. The trick with this breakout board is that each input has its very own little isolated optocoupler. I don’t really understand all that. However, I do understand that each input needs to be powered from the power supply and complete a circuit to work. So I think of it as trying to link 4 wires together to turn on 1 little green light bulb on the breakout board. I’ve got 2 wires per input supplied by Price and a + wire and - wire from the power supply. After some trial and error, here is my high powered, professionally produced diagram on how to wire the Price AVHC10 to a UCCNC UCBB Dual Port Breakout Board.

The Price wiring is mostly twisted pairs of wires. Note the squiggled wires coming out of the AVHC10. They are pairs. Each set has a black wire and another colored wire. The diagram is color coded to match the Price AVHC10 colored wire pairs.These are only the ones that need to go to the breakout board. There are several other wires and pairs not going to this board, but the instructions for those are universal for all systems and easy to understand. I simplified the diagram by combining all the wires going to the power supply. For testing, that’s quick and easy. In reality, I’m running individual +- wires to respective terminal blocks for each input. So where I show 4 wires all combining into 1 going to the negative power supply terminal, I really have 4 individual wires going to their individual slots on a negative terminal block. Ditto for all the positive wires. It took less than 5 minutes to set up inputs in the UCCNC software. Everything tests out right. The diagnostics screen shows the proper green lights. The Run screen shown all the right stuff too. I couldn’t find this info anywhere so I hope this little bit of documentation helps someone out in the future.

All the best,

Scott Meer

[Robertspark]

Antidive is not an input (to the ucbb). It requires an output from the ucbb to tell the price thc to pause

The others look fine

Plus the price thc requires a power supply connection too

[Rodzilla]

In the price literature he states that anti-dive from the price unit will not work with uccnc. I'm using the price thc and uccnc software with the 300eth-5lpt as well, but using a pair of c10 breakout boards. I've just got my table running, and haven't messed with anti-dive in the uccnc software. I'm still trying to figure out what's the best parts of thc in uccnc to use along with the price unit.

[cncdrive]

What antidive does is that it inhibits the THC Z axis control when the feedrate goes down too much compared to the programmed value, for example on sharp corners and direction changes when the axes have to deccelerate to change direction, then the THC controller would move the torch into the workpiece, so the antidive function can disable the THC Z control until the feedrate goes back to normal.

A THC controller like the price have no idea about the programmed feedrate and the actual feedrate, so the only way it can output a signal which can be used as antidive is if it senses the arc voltage and if it goes out of the set boundary then it outputs the antidive signal, because it means the same, that the controller will push the Z into the workpiece.

In the UCCNC there is built in antidive control, you can set the feedrate% when to activate the antidive, so there is no need for antidive from the THC controller,
but if I recall (Cannot check now, not at a computer) there is input also in the UCCNC to input an antidive activation from an input pin. But again, there is no need for that, the built in antidive function should work better than any antidive signal from a THC controller.

[cncdrive]

Or maybe Rob is right that the antidive in the Price THC is an input for the THC which makes the THC controller to stop producing the THC up/down signals.
If I recall there is also antidive output in the UCCNC which you could configure and use, but again the built in antidive in the UCCNC does this job.

[Robertspark]

In the price literature he states that anti-dive from the price unit will not work with uccnc.

That's not quite correct.... It says it's not required, which upon reflection is correct..... Because uccnc will ignore the up/ DN if thc is disabled..... But then it ignores the arc ok too.

https://7b84bbd3-9971-4b2e-8351-72dfab6 ... 42d743.pdf

2.2.2 Anti-Dive on UCCNC
A reduced feed rate is often used when cutting small holes or tight angles, this reduced feed
rate will increase the arc voltage, which may cause the AVHC10 to lower the torch into the
work piece. To prevent the torch diving into the work piece when a reduced feed rate is
used, Torch Height Control (THC) should be deactivated during the reduced feed rate. To
temporarily deactivate THC you can use a selection of different methods. An option that is
available in UCCNC is the THC min speed setting which will make the software ignore the
up/down commands from the AVHC10 if the feed rate has dropped by the selected
percentage of the normal (G01) feed rate. This function is usually adequate for good plasma
cutters.
Cheap plasma cutters may need more specific anti-dive assistance by using Cut Rules in
SheetCam that tell the G-code to turn off and on THC as required. The M-codes M205 and
M206 can be inserted into your g-code file by using cut rules in SheetCam (M205 = THC on
and M206 = THC off). These rules are setup as per Section 5.
The Anti-dive (yellow wire) input signal on the AVHC10 is not required with UCCNC software
as UCCNC has special M-codes that turn on and off THC from within UCCNC.

It also ignores the up/ down during the thc delay.... And it will ignore the up down if the feedrate drops below the percentage allowance set ....

However.... I would recommend that that input IS used to the price AVC because there are times when you want to ignore the thc up/ DN but still want to know if the arc ok is lost so that if the arc ok was lost motion could be stopped and backed up to the point of arcok loss to allow for a restart (a BIG benefit of uccnc not spoken about enough)

[Rodzilla]

In the price literature he states that anti-dive from the price unit will not work with uccnc.

That's not quite correct.... It says it's not required, which upon reflection is correct.....

Ahhh yes, I stand corrected. Been reading so much stuff over the last two months while getting my table up and running that I forget some details.

Why does the uccnc manual have nothing on the THC controls? Specifically the anti-dive or anti down? I haven't a clue how to set these up.

[Robertspark]

The macros are explained.... What do you want to know

[Rodzilla]

The macros are explained.... What do you want to know

Thanks Robert. I found the info where you said, still weird its not where the rest of information is found for using the I/O setup page. So for the antidive whats a good percentage I should be use as a starting point? And for anti down I see that more for crossing previously cut lines, and basically it says you should be inserting the macro in the post processor is best idea. So if I push the button in real time on the screen it activates I'm assuming, and why have a screen button to activate it if you're better off having it in the g-code?

I can definitely see why my thc likes to ride on the lowest setting in the thc parameters alot of the time, since I haven't enabled anti-dive before its wanting to run torch to the table when decelerating.

Cheers

[Robertspark]

M205/M206 THC ON & OFF

This is your primary control..... basically I would never turn this off unless you want to run without THC or using ARC OK.

M207/M208 THC Delay.
This delay operates from the time the torch fires (M3) and it basically
allows for the THC to be ignored and allow for the voltage of the THC to stabilise
It is a tricky one..... because if you are piercing thick material the pierce delay will be longer than if you were piercing thin material.... this delay is AFTER the torch fires...... so it does not take into account any pierce delay.

The correct way to set this would be to adjust time time for every material.... to compensate for the pierce delay (and transfer) before motion starts ..... and then allow a static number for the voltage to stabilise within the THC.

To be honest.... I don't use it as will become clearer below

M209/M210 THC AntiDive when motion drops below the feedrate.

This is a tricky one to understand..... or it was for me any way
The key is "when" motion drops below the programmed feedrate.

Say I have (in millimetres)

G1 X100 F5000
G1 Y100
G1 X0
G1 Y0

If M209 is enabled and has a percentage of say 80%.... when is the feedrate going to drop below 80%?
The only time that this is going to happen is when movement starts (and accelerates to 5000mm/min) .... and when the one axis slows down and the other starts to move there is likely to be a slowing down unless you have high acceleration or a big number inserted for Corner Error Max (search + read + reread + understand the manual!)

If your acceleration is high then this has less effect on the THC given your THC is not going to be slowing down from the PROGRAMMED / SET feedrate much. If you have lower acceleration then yes it will slow down.

I set mine at about 80/90% (I've read others set it at 60% from the days of Mach3.... but their machines were probably slower in acceleration).

This ONLY works when the feedrate drops below the programmed / set feedrate.... if you set your feedrate at 60% for holes less than 25mm in diameter then it WON'T WORK..... except at the start and end of the cut where the machine is accelerating and decelerating.

M211/M212 THC Anti-Down

This is the one that I use for corners and for circles where I want to prevent the torch from diving ..... in sheetcam you can use code snippets. this is where I use this to stop the machine from lowering the torch into the material because I'm running it at a lower feedrate than the programmed linear book feedrate. Given when the machine runs slower the kerf gets wider and the voltage on the plasma cutter gets higher to maintain the cutting amperage and power rating for the material. So if it was me with the Price AVHC (or like I do with the miniTHC) I use the output for the M211/M212 to disable the THC.

YMMV, I am just a hobby user and don't do this for a living (yet.... that may change in weeks or months who knows with covid19)