Messages

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 18, 2021, 10:41:14 AM »

Can you post a screenshot of your homing/soft limits tab in the config screen?

Here is the screen config tab: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sv9vn1ykybOpe3F0-gMe6xGY59h8g6Gy/view?usp=sharing

Scenarios below: 1) works, 2) limits are out of range 3) bad burst move on wrong axis

1) If I move the stage from center to min positions by jogging with X-,Y- and Z-; quit Mach4; restart Mach4; press Reference All Axes; see dialog that “Referencing is complete”, press Soft Limits On – things work find.  X- does not move.  X+ move goes to the expected limit and stops. 

2) If I have Mach4 loaded up and the machine turned on with its stage in the center; to min positions by jogging with X-,Y- and Z-; do not quit Mach4; do not restart Mach4; press Reference All Axes; see dialog that “Referencing is complete”, press zero X,Y,Z, press Soft Limits On – X- acts like X+ at a slower jog rate because the machine coordinates did not zero.

3) If I have Mach4 loaded up and the machine turned on with its stage in the center; to min positions by jogging with X-,Y- and Z-; do not quit Mach4; do not restart Mach4; press Reference All Axes; see dialog that “Referencing is complete”, do not press zero X,Y,Z, press Soft Limits On – X- suddenly jerks the Y in the positive direction over an inch.  In fact drops Y which was at -1.2 inches and appears to have taken it to zero.  So it might have traveled the full 1.2 inches and it does it fast.

2

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 16, 2021, 10:00:01 AM »

Can you post a screenshot of your homing/soft limits tab in the config screen?

Sure.  I'll post some tonight.  But the soft limits are working. Travel to the far extents does show soft limits kicking in.  It's just that I have to quit mach4 after positioning it at the home position and then restart mach4.

3

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 15, 2021, 09:17:39 PM »

So I have tried the Ref All, and the machine coordinates are still out of range of the soft limits.

Someone yesterday in another forum suggested G92.  So I tried that, but the machine coordinates still remain out of range of the soft limits until I exit Mach 4 and restart the app.  Then it's fine. 

So I'm still looking for an answer.  But when I get homing switches installed, the routine that runs that must be either resetting the soft limits or reset the machine coordinates.  I have not heard anyone saying their soft limits in the configure dialog box move around, so the auto homing must be getting the machine coordinates in range.

4

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 15, 2021, 08:23:22 AM »

once you have determined what constitutes your Home position you MUST repeat that Home position every Mach session.

So that's the issue here.  As stated, when I home for each session it involves a quit and restart of Mach 4 to get the machine coordinate into the correct range for the soft limits. 

5

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 15, 2021, 08:14:25 AM »

So I tried All Ref by it self, and the machine coordinates are still not in the right range.  They are not getting zeroed.  If anyone has an idea about how to address that issue, let me know.

Thanks.

6

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 15, 2021, 03:16:59 AM »

Negative machine coordinates are perfectly permissible and work fine. Remember that Mach is not intimidated by negative numbers no matter how much they
confuse us.

Yes, I could have centered for home position and had negative numbers. 

But the problem is that the machine coordinates are out of range of the soft limits.  I could go into the config dialog and re-edit the min/max values of the soft limits, but it is easy to just quit out of mach4 and restart it.  It then comes up with machine coordinates that are in range, and things work properly. 

So right now I have min to max as 0 to 8000.  If I instead centered to get a home position, I would need to have soft limits at -4000 to 4000.  But moving the stage left or right for X to center, say distance D which could be a positive number or negative, means that the machine coordinates will be in a translated range -4000+D to 4000+D. 

7

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 14, 2021, 09:44:12 PM »

So try this:
Open Mach4
Move the table to your "Home Position"
Hit Reference All
Zero your Axis

See what you get once you do that.

Reference All first, Zero second; still leaves the machine coordinates with a negative number. 
If I turn on Soft Limits, X- has a  slow speed moving in the positive direction.  X+ moves in the positive direction at the jogging speed.

So basically Ref All first or Zero first doesn't make a difference unfortunately.  I have to home, quite the app, load Mach4 and oddly the axis will have negative numbers but the machine coordinates will be zero.  I then zero and ref, turn on soft limits and it runs as expected.

8

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 14, 2021, 02:18:59 PM »

"I think your issues lies with you hitting the zero buttons before homing the machine.
That will cause your work coordinates (offsets) to change if they don't match the machine position."

Thanks!  I'll try that out tonight.

9

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 Homing and Machine Coordinates

« on: July 14, 2021, 11:16:18 AM »

So Mach4 uses machine coordinates to compare with the values in the configure dialog box's Soft Limit columns min/max.

If I turn a Taig mill on with no home switches installed, position x,y,z at a consistent min position and hit the zero buttons and then the Reference All Axes (Home), get the pop up dialog about setting home; the machine coordinate can be negative and apparently the soft limits min/max values are going to be compared to those negative values.  So now Mach4 thinks the stage is way outside the soft limits, and both the negative and positive jog buttons both go in the same direction -- I guess to only allow you to get it back in range. 

If you quit Mach4 and restart, the machine coordinates are zero and the soft limits work correctly. 

So is there someway that I'm missing here to "Reference All Axes (Home)"?  Has anyone else run into this and do they actually quit and restart Mach4 each time they turn on their machine with no homing switches?  I'l make some brackets and put on homing switches here soon, but isn't there some way to just zero out the machine coordinates short of restart the app?

10

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Starting Mach4

« on: September 06, 2020, 12:32:56 AM »

I got the motors going.  I had to reinstall the uc100 driver and update a firmware, which is something it never asked about before.