Well, so far I've been talking to myself which is a good thing because I'm solving my own problems. However, I'm currently baffled by limit/homing switches. My previous machine (Sherline) didn't have limit/homing switches so when I got the new one I bypassed this setup in my haste to make parts (well that and after using only a hobby mill you think you'll never get near the limits of a large mill).
I'm trying to get the 2010 screenset operational with an end goal of using the automatic tool height option. For this it reference a known location on the table so now I need to get this set up so the machine 'knows' where it is instead of just zero'ing the X and Y wherever my part bottom left or center is.
My machine has two switches on each axis. Testing indicates that one switch stops travel at the extents of the table/spindle movement, allowing no further movement in that direction but if I hold the key to jog the other direction it will drive off the switch. I'm guessing this is done external to the Galil controller and Mach3 as neither were configured by me for limit switches and the diagnostic window doesn't show any limit switch activity when they are activated. I also opened one of the switches and the leads are white, green, black and white. The Galil 1842 does have wires in pins 45, 48, and 51 (home Z, Y, and X) but they have a clear coating, clearly not the same wires coming off the actual switches.
I have no idea what the other switch does. The stops for them are set at the extreme of +Z, -Y, and -Z. It would seem that if they were where I think homing switches should be they would be at -X, -Y, and +Z (lower left and top of spindle travel). Moving them by hand doesn't do anything when the table is moving.
In my reading I found:
Having separate home switches can be a good thing in some situations, some controllers can allow Index homing if you have servos. The machine will home, hit the switch then look for the index pulse from the encoder and set that as machine zero.
This may be relevant as this is a servo driven mill.
Anyone know of a limit/homing switch 101 website?
Thanks,
Mark