Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Soundman on November 09, 2009, 09:47:08 PM

Title: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: Soundman on November 09, 2009, 09:47:08 PM
I have just finishing up my plasma / router table it is a 48" x 96" table with steppers on each side for the y axes each side has a homing switch connected to a board with A home and Y home can I get mach 3 to controll each motor so I can bring the gantry back into alignment each time I send it home. Right now i have Y and A slaved.

Any help would be appreciated.
Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: Chaoticone on November 09, 2009, 10:56:25 PM
If they are slaved the Refrenceing routine should take care of this for you. Are you running the parrallel port or other hardware?

Brett
Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: Soundman on November 09, 2009, 11:23:09 PM
parallel port I think
Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: Hood on November 10, 2009, 03:02:01 AM
Config menu then General Config page has an option to home slave with master, never had a slaved axis so not sure which way it should be set for squaring.
Hood
Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: Greolt on November 10, 2009, 07:23:00 PM
Soundman

If you have a separate home switch for each side of the slaved axis then uncheck "Home Salve with Master axis"

With the default homing macro, Y will home and A will travel along with it, and then A will home afterwards on its own, as Y stays still.  With only a very small amount of A movement.

I have seen it recommended to use Refcombination command in the macro with a slaved axis but I have never done so.

Greg
Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: Soundman on November 10, 2009, 10:35:49 PM
Thanks for the help I will try that tomorrow when I get back to the shop.
Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: borge on November 17, 2009, 04:00:27 AM
hi Soundman

Did you fix the problem? I'm having the same issue here.
I tryed to uncheck "Home Salve with Master axis" but then everything goes wrong here ???
Not sure what my next move will be

Borge

Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: Soundman on November 17, 2009, 09:25:21 AM
Yes I got it fixed and it self aligns, I was having a bad problem with it till I scraped the set I was working with and started fresh. I decided that I had set so many switches that I didn't know where the problem was.
When I started fresh and was making sure that every thing was working correctly as I progressed, I found that my homing switches for the gantry "Y" and "A" Were controlling the opposite axis so when "Y" axes stoped it it stopped the "A" axes instead and nothing was working right, It was overshooting the switches, not stopping were I wanted and creating all kinds of problems. I also figured out that once it was fixed that setting the home location from the stop position did not move the gantry it just moves the home position on the table. I was thinking that the gantry would move to the home position after hitting the stops. It doesn't. It does if you hit reference then hit home after it stops at the switches.

Still playing with it now I am down to getting the plasma to fire.

Hope this helps
P.S the slave with master in the general config page does need to be unmarked.
Title: Re: Self Aligning Gantry
Post by: ger21 on November 17, 2009, 12:33:07 PM
Quote
P.S the slave with master in the general config page does need to be unmarked.

That option is for using a single switch, When it's checked, I would think that it would ignore the second switch.