Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Peter. on October 08, 2012, 02:04:34 PM

Title: Any good reason NOT to use one switch for home and limits?
Post by: Peter. on October 08, 2012, 02:04:34 PM

I'm planning to use a single microswitch for home and both end limits for my X and Y axis. I've already mocked it up and run a test by soldering a NC switch onto the parallel lead wires and just triggered it by hand and it seems to do the job nicely. Using this I can have limits on three axes and an E-stop and still have an input left spare.

Any reason not to do it?

Title: Re: Any good reason NOT to use one switch for home and limits?
Post by: Hood on October 08, 2012, 03:40:14 PM

No reason at all, you can in fact connect all axis switches in series if they are NC and just use one input. Mach will move one axis at a time when homing and when the switch is seen will move the next axis etc.
There can be advantahes to using separate home and limits such as if you have a very large machine you may wish to have the home switches nearer the normal work area instead of having to travel to axis extents when homing. For most however the single switch setup works great.
Hood

Title: Re: Any good reason NOT to use one switch for home and limits?
Post by: Peter. on October 08, 2012, 04:38:26 PM

Ok cheers Hood - I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I'm missing.

Longest travel is just over 300mm so I haven't got to wait long for it to home.