New arcdroid user, About 6 weeks. Run hypertherm power max 45, hand torch that is well and freely supported. Arcdroid is insulated from cut table with 1/4 thick rubber mat. Cut table and arcdroid mount base have 8 ga earth grounds. My issue, cutting 3/8 inch thick plate from a trace program ( about 25 ipm), everything runs great for about 3 to 5 minutes burn time, then arcdroid starts to veer off the trace program in random fashion. Generally no recovery on the part. Dry or practice runs with pendant or torch and plasma off run flawless repeatedly. Have performed more calibrations and factory resets than I can to admit. Calibrations generally 313.5 MM or little less.have hours going through the forums and not made any progress solving my issues.my firmware is TFT70_V3.0_512.27xppr-2025-07-089 July 8 2025 16:29:35.
Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I just had this issue on 1/8, cutting out multiple flat stack grills, it did it to me 3 times at random times and cut files. It has never happened to me before, it was only after the last update. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it could be an issue with the last update.
It looks like the total length of the “side steps” is what you’re short in length to get to the start.
I dunno, never experienced that. Not sure if the rubber mat is a good idea under the Droid base. Might make a voltage differential between grounds. If you rotated the trace 90 deg and rotated your stock to match and reran that same scrapped piece I wonder if the error would change and go a different direction.
On the rubber mat, I had this issue (Droid not following the trace)previously to the rubber mat. That was one of my attempts to solve the problem, generally I had the issue occasionally on a larger trace that was close to the cut envelope. Smaller parts say 2 or 3 inches by 4 or 5 inches run fine.
Today I actually made a new trace of the same part as I want to tweek a couple things a bit. As bob suggested I rotated things about 90 degrees. The dry run looked good. The cut came out poorly. Again the chaulk line is around a cardboard template
I dunno…..it’s certainly losing its mind! Do the jagged excursions appear to be the same cutting speed compared to correct areas? Deliberate feed versus a wild speed lurch?
Is the service connection ground for the plasma good at both the plug and the plasma chassis?
It sure looks like electrical interference glitches. Certainly not typical of a Hypertherm unit. Try moving it as far away as possible. Any old metal window screen laying about? Cobbled together Faraday cage that is also grounded around the plasma supply. Just wrapping around it and folding the ends over should work.
