New CNC Plasma

[drxlcarfreak]

I am building a CNC plasma. I have everything wired up, and programmed into UCCNC for the most part, uncluding the THC section. I am having trouble figuring out where to input the pin for the torch on/off switch. I probably missed it, but couldn't find anything in the user manual about it. Where is that located, and is there a manual on/off on the home page that I can use to over ride and test my wiring?

[beefy]

In gcode "M3" is generally used to turn on the torch. In typical milling, routing, etc M3 is "spindle forward" and M4 is "spindle reverse", but for plasma think of M3 as "Torch Fire".

So if you go to the spindle setup section, you'll see port and pin number boxes where you can set your OUTPUT port/pin numbers for M3. I stressed output because you said, "input the pin for the torch on/off switch" yet you must output a signal to turn on the torch.

I use Sheetcam to generate my plasma gcode and (with the correct post processor) it will automatically insert M3 or M03 into the code wherever the turn is turned on.