[plain ol Bill]

What sort of plunge rate are you using in your Sheetcam tools? For some reason I picked 5 ipm and am curious to know what others are using.

[tulsaturbo]

I am using 20 ipm...

[Torchhead]

Plunge rate is the speed that the Z uses between the pierce height and the Intial Cut Height. It moves the torch down into the cut after the molten metal has had time to dissipate. The time becomes part of the Pierce Delay because no XY movement is involved unless you select a ramp lead-in. So you are talking about how long it takes your Z to move from maybe .125 to .063. At 5 IPM that is .0833 inches per sec. To move .062 inches would take .744 seconds. That would probably be too much time for material thinner than 10ga. Since the ARC OK also contributes to the delay time (nothing moves until you get that) then you may be up to a second in delay. A better setting is probably in the 20 to 40 IPM range.

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear!

TOM Caudle
www.CandCNC.com

[plain ol Bill]

Thank you for the replys guys. I will change my plunge rate to 20 ipm and see how that works for me. I used a new tool the other day and kept wondering what in the world it was doing after it pierced then took forever to get to cut height. The tool had .38 IPM in the plunge rate box. Took forever but I changed it to 5 IPM and things progressed much faster (grin).