Torchmate cnc plasma cutter software

Above: Torchmate driver software is DOS based. If Windows 95/98 is on the computer you use to run your machine, you must restart it in DOS mode.

The software uses standard HPGL files (Hewlett Packard Graphics Language) to control the movement of the machine on two axes, and to turn the torch on and off under computer control.

When the HPGL file is loaded, the shape to be cut is viewed on the screen. A read-out at the bottom of the screen tells you what percentage of the file has been cut.

Speed, dwell time, ramping (acceleration and deceleration), scaling, position of shape on the screen, and additional functions are controlled via pull-down menus. When the machine is not executing an HPGL file, the torch can be jogged to any position by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. You can also make a relative move on both axes of any distance you specify.

You can pause in the middle of a cut sequence by pressing the space bar. The torch goes off and stops moving. When you want it to resume, you click on a button on the screen, and the torch dwells the same length of time as at the beginning of the file, and then completes the cut.

You can set up your HPGL file so the machine will cut different parts of a shape at different speeds. For example, if you were cutting out the shape of a horse, you could make the torch cut the thin legs out faster than the thicker parts of the body. This is done by assigning different speeds to up to 8 pen colors. You then simply change the pen color at the beginning of the part you want cut at a different speed.

Since a circuit board must be added to your computer, you must run your machine with a desktop 386 or higher computer. You will need an additional computer, preferably a pentium, to create your shapes in your office. Then simply carry the resulting HPGL file out to your shop on a floppy disk and copy it to the hard drive on your shop computer.