Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: watsonrick on January 22, 2015, 08:54:31 PM

Title: Confusion with Offsets Screen documentation
Post by: watsonrick on January 22, 2015, 08:54:31 PM
I'm looking at section 7 in Mach3Mill_1.84.pdf. In section 7.2.1, #2, it says: 
" Click the Touch button next to each of the axes in the Current Work Offset part of the screen. On the first Touch you will see that the existing coordinate of the Touched axis is put into the Part Offset DRO and the axis DRO reads zero. subsequent Touches on other axes copy the Current Coordinate to the offset and zero that axis DRO. "


My question is: what are the "touch buttons"? In the "Current Work Offset" section, I have 4 DROs, labeled "Part Offset", then "X", "Y", "Z", and "4". None of these labels are buttons.

I'm trying to set all the offsets to zero as well as set the axis DROs to zero, but I don't see an easy way to do that. What am I missing?
Title: Re: Confusion with Offsets Screen documentation
Post by: Overloaded on January 22, 2015, 09:44:51 PM
That is a bit confusing.
The buttons are here:

Russ
Title: Re: Confusion with Offsets Screen documentation
Post by: RICH on January 23, 2015, 08:04:25 AM
Quote
I'm trying to set all the offsets to zero as well as set the axis DROs to zero, but I don't see an easy way to do that.

Are you using switches or soft limits?

RICH
Title: Re: Confusion with Offsets Screen documentation
Post by: watsonrick on January 23, 2015, 11:18:17 AM
I use the same switches for home, and limit.

I wrote the original post because I was trying to learn more about how offsets work.

It doesn't seem like you can zero both the current work offset and the active work offset by just clicking or entering values in the DROs on the Offsets page.
Title: Re: Confusion with Offsets Screen documentation
Post by: ger21 on January 23, 2015, 11:54:08 AM
Quote
It doesn't seem like you can zero both the current work offset and the active work offset by just clicking or entering values in the DROs on the Offsets page.

I don't have a copy of mach3 in front of me, so I may word something incorrectly here.

Your terminology is incorrect. The "Current Work Offset" is describing the offset number, 1, 2, 3, ....
The "Active Work Offset" is describing the offset g-code, G54, G55, G66, ...

There are two sets of DRO's on the offset page.
1) The Offsets
2) The machine position in Work Coordinates (with offset applied).

The machine position is the Machine coordinate position - the Offsets. If you zero the offset, the position DRO's will display Machine Coordinates. Machine Coordinates can only be zeroed by Referencing (homing) the axis.

If you zero the position DRO's, what your doing is setting an offset (unless the position is machine zero). So this will change the offset DRO's.
When you zero the offsets, you'll change the position DRO's to show Machine Coordinates.


You might want to watch the tutorial video on homing, limits and offsets, which explains how offsets work.