Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Antiquated on September 24, 2011, 08:57:03 PM

Title: Setting work space / table size on MaxNC OL with Mach 3
Post by: Antiquated on September 24, 2011, 08:57:03 PM

Hello,

I've just blown the dust off an old MaxNC OL, I've installed Mach 3 and tuned the motors to have full functionality on the x, y, and z axis.  I can load a sample program and it seems to run fine, however, I stop it before the machine crashes.

My question is how do I setup my workspace / table size / and set a home (to center the table) in mach 3?  This machine doesn't have limit switches and I can't have it crashing.

It appears that the machines extents are as follows:

12" in the X
7" in the Y
9" in the Z


I was thinking that my soft max X would be 12", my soft max Y would be 7", and my soft max Z would be 0 with a soft min of -9"

Can anyone let me know if I'm going in the right direction or reading into this completely wrong.  Thanks

Title: Re: Setting work space / table size on MaxNC OL with Mach 3
Post by: Hood on September 25, 2011, 04:12:32 AM

Do you have home switches? You can only use softlimits if you have referenced Mach as otherwise Mach doesnt know where it is in relation to any limits ( physical or soft).
Hood

Title: Re: Setting work space / table size on MaxNC OL with Mach 3
Post by: Antiquated on September 25, 2011, 11:58:47 AM

Hey Hood,

This machine doesn't have home or limit switches, I suppose the only thing I can do is manually set the origin and reference those points as home?

Title: Re: Setting work space / table size on MaxNC OL with Mach 3
Post by: Hood on September 25, 2011, 12:02:47 PM

Yes, a lot of people using stepper just jog onto a stop at the end of axis and then call that home by using the Ref All button. All depends on your setup and whether your steppers would potentially be powerful enough to do damage before they stalled.

Hood