[scubawarm]

I want/need to retrofit a large (14'wide gantry) ESAB Avenger 1 Plasma table with two 600 amp heads that was purchased at auction.

I have been looking at my options. With MACH4 I could maybe get the second head to work as a slave to the first one and just have another setup when only using one head. Pretty much leaning towards VitalSystem complete Ethernet closed loop system with Yaskawa drives. if I go this direction.

I want to keep this as simple (Ethernet wherever possible) and professional as possible not worried about saving a few dollars here and there. But, am an experienced programmer so having the power and flexibility these "hobby" systems provide is very attractive... Oh saving $50K is not bad either.

So far it seems to me UCCNC is a replacement for Mach3, and is still all serial cable stuff???

SO: Would like direction on:
Which software to use for plasma?
Are two heads possible?
If I do go CNCNC, what is the simplest closed loop cards that are recommended?
What THC with that card system?

Thanks much for anyone's time and input.

[OlfCNC]

I use UCCNC and UC400ETH on my plasma machine which is an ethernet motion controller for uccnc and with NeuronTHC which is an ethernet THC controller.
I have one head only on the machine, but I think 2 heads should be no problem.
You could use the swapaxis function of the uccnc and an offset.

[A_Camera]

So far it seems to me UCCNC is a replacement for Mach3, and is still all serial cable stuff???

I can't help you with the plasma questions, but what do you mean by this question? UCCNC has never been serial cable type. They have USB and Ethernet controllers. UC400 and UC300ETH are the two types. I have a UC300ETH and very happy with it.

[jrslick22]

Im building one at the moment, uccnc, neuron thc, hypertherm.

[OlfCNC]

That's a nice machine base, but what is the weight of the gantry?
It looks a bit overly robust to me for a plasma machine.

[robertspark]

With uccnc you can have 6 axis ...

What you do with them is up to you, and all depends on how you set your post processor up.

If you are using Neuron torch height controllers... This will mean that your z and z1 axis become free... So that would give you technically 8 axis control

I presume you will have two servo motors for the Y and y1 axis, and 2 or 4 for the X axis.