Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: ganadero on May 24, 2014, 09:46:25 AM

Title: reference the machine without limit switches?
Post by: ganadero on May 24, 2014, 09:46:25 AM
 hello guys;

I'm about to finish my first plasma cutting machine, the axes move in all directions a person it  was advised that it was not necessary to limit switches but I find it hard to understand how you will reference the machine without these I was told that by setting homing / limits but took a week and I can not, do someone can help me


 ;) ;) ;) ;)
Title: Re: reference the machine without limit switches?
Post by: BR549 on May 24, 2014, 10:44:53 AM
In all honesty you do not need to HOME the machine. Just move it to your WORK 0,0 and zero the DROs and press the big green Button(Cycle Start).

Now IF you are running servos then YES you need limit switches to protect the servo.  With steppers NOPE not needed.

(;-) TP
Title: Re: reference the machine without limit switches?
Post by: ganadero on May 24, 2014, 11:12:37 AM
 tanks my friend,,

I have in my machine stepers, Then every time I turn on my machine I need to manually reference the home?
Title: Re: reference the machine without limit switches?
Post by: Fastest1 on May 26, 2014, 03:17:02 PM
   What TP is saying is "referencing" isnt necessary. And if only running the part in 1 set up or if no mistakes are made, that is probably alright. However if there was an issue or recovery was needed, I am not sure how he would implement that. Not saying it cant be done, I just dont know how,       yet.

   The way I did it prior to having switches on my machines was to move the X & Y axis to their most negative travel and the Z up to the top. Hit ref all home. All machine coordinates will then turn to 0. If your software limits are correct (if you set them up), you can keep your machine pretty accurate, not to the .002 but good for most work.
Title: Re: reference the machine without limit switches?
Post by: BR549 on May 26, 2014, 04:24:59 PM
Plasma is EASY to recover as the cut tolerances are fairly large. Move to a point in the program you want to restart in. MOVE the machine torch tip to THAT spot on the material you have already started cutting on. Set the DROs to the same as in the Program line and restart.

There are several OTHER methods as well.

(;-) TP