[miles peters]

I am trying to cut 1/2 inch steel with p.m. 85 set at 85 amp using the recommended settings but my drive motors keep kicking out maybe 3 times in a 1 foot square it restarts no problem and seems to be random.
Anyone with the powermax 85 have this. Is it noise.can it be fixd. Sould I take the plasma cable out of the harness away from the control wires?
The motors don't kick at lower settings or in dry runs.

[WSS]

When you say the motors are kicking out, do you mean physically out of the rail and jumping or do you mean the system estops and the dro's turn gray? If the system is e-stopping, try unchecking the "stop on lost arc" button below the torch volts dro. I put in some special capacitors at the master motor mount but still have the same problem. Un checking it eliminated the estops but the machine does keep running when you have a real lost arc, which is not very often. The machine will pick up the cut easily enough if that happens. One thing we learned about restarts is to make a circle in at least two arcs if you suspect a problem ahead, as the system will not pickup the cut if it is a circle and you have to go back to the start of the circle cut and run w/o the torch and manually click on the torch fire button when you cross the lost cut area and run for a few inches before turning on the thc. I should add "large circles" over a few inches in diameter, as bolt holes are usually not a problem.

[miles peters]

The system estops. I have never been able to run with stop on lost arc checked.So I guess 65 amp is max. for me. Thanks for your time Tom I hope your new drives work out well for you.

[tyler774]

I had a similar issue caused by the cooling fan in my Powermax 1000, unplugged the fan and no more problems. Was something to do with the fan kicking in, it is only supposed to run if the machine temp. rises to a certain point.
This was causing me lots of grief until I figured it out. Been meaning to come up with a permanent fix but for now just plug in a separate fan when I am cutting, ( cover off ).

Ty

[miles peters]

Your cooling fan was enough to cause an e-stop to occur man that must have been some hard to figure out.If I ever get this bug out I will post what it was.

[magma-joe]

Miles,

Another issue that will cause the machine to shut down is a drop below minimum required air pressure at the plasma. If you are cutting with an 85 amp nozzle it requires a large volume of air. If it drops below the minimum for just a second the plasma shuts off the arc in the middle of the cut which in turn can shut down the motors. You might check this as it is common.

Magma-joe

[miles peters]

Thank you Magma-joe
My stop at lost arc is un checked so if I lose arc the drives keep moving.
Another issue I have is my arc voltage reading is way out maybe 20 points.
I am reading it off the back of my hyperthem 85 it's set to the 50 to 1 position and my controler is calibrated for 50 to 1 and my machine scaled arc voltage
setting is 6 so I'm just living with it.
Don't nobody get me wrong I do love my Dynatorch I would just like to clear up these little things that bug me and I know they are just do to my inexperience with high tec. as I am a hammer and shovel man.

[teachagmech]

I had a similar problem running a TD A-80. Leon form Dynatorch and I went rounds but finally ended up putting in a mechanical-magnetic relay for the torch fire control. Seemed to take care of the problem.... complete isolation of the noise between the plasma generator and the control box for the cnc. There's also a few capacitors that I had to add to one of the connectors....

about $20 from radio shack fixed it.

[miles peters]

I found my problem so I thought I should post it stupid as it is.
When I wired my table I put in a sub panl with a circuit for my pm 85 and a second one for the controller looked good to me.But when I moved the controller back to the main panl no more problem I can for the fist time run with my stop at lost arc cheked and run full 85 amp.
thanks to Jim Colt for mentioning he has an u.p.s. on his controller.
good hint.