Hi, all!

I've recently been commissioned to do some programming for a local trailer manufacturer who bought this CNC plasma tube cutter about two weeks ago ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35MOW692e18 ). I am not having much luck with getting the entire picture of what the trailer manufacturer is dealing with (i.e., whether they purchased EMI's "proprietary conversational software package", etc.). I can't believe how much work it was to get these cowboys even to convey something relatively close to the name of the company that built the CNC plasma tube cutter. I was also quite amused to find out on my own that this thing is a PLASMA cutter, since they've been calling it a LASER all along. You'd think if anyone knew a plasma cutter, it would be someone in the welding industry. Ha! Rant aside, I'm faced with a pretty daunting task here.

Typically a CNC machine comes with a dedicated manual, indicating the specific G- and M- (Q-, whatever, etc.) codes which are the standard operating codes for the machine. This does not. The trailer manufacturer brought up a CNC mill manual. I rashly judged that this was a sign of incompetence and so called the company to get the manual. The company also sent me a CNC mill manual. I called back and asked what the deal was, since I did not wish to waste my time reading a CNC mill manual to learn a machine that's not the machine in question. I was assured that this is the correct manual since the CNC on the tube cutter is, in fact, a mill controller. O. K. I felt a bit in twilight zone! So, I questioned as to the interpretive section of the manual which ties the use of the CNC for a mill back to the operations of the plasma tube cutter (with bar-feed). No-go. The tech guy had no idea other than to say that they use vanilla G-codes and some intricate M-codes. Okie-dokie.

This is why I've come here to the fora. Is anyone here familiar with this specific plasma tube cutter? Can anyone point me in a specific direction on where to read for programming this machine? I need to know all of the G- and M-codes, to understand the axial motions and their indicators, the units of feed, start and stop cutting, etc. Everything, really.

On a final note, I may sound overly critical of EMI, Inc., but I'm really very glad that their tech took the time to talk to me today...and I am really hoping to be able to come up to speed programming this machine.

Thanks in advance,

-- Nicole