I am trying to set soft limits without a home switch.  I made some soft limits in the home / limits menu.  I tried to activate the soft limits and the communications bar read "machine out of limits for softlimits activation".  I need a step by step on how to set up some soft limits and homes to run a few programs for my z axis parts and my optical switches for homing and limits. 

I have an x2 running the probotix red motor 3 axis setup and my table travel is 9" x axis, and 4" y axis.

Presuming its a mill.
 Go to Config menu then Homing and Limits. Make sure the Auto Zero is chosen and set X and Y min as Zero and Z Max also as zero. Next set X and Y max as your axis travels and Z Min as the Z travel as a negative number.
Then move your machine so the table is fully right and fully toward the column and have the Z fully up. Now press the Ref All button, now you should be able to use the SoftLimits.
Each time you start Mach you will have to move the table and Z to the above mentioned positions and press the Ref All button, once you have the home switches fitted you can then enable them and the RefAll button will do the homing automatically .
Hood

still not working i will try to post pictures of what i have going on tonight after work.

The problem is that you are looking at the wrong set of DRO's.

Soft limits work on Machine Co-ordinates, not Program Co-ordinates.

I have just run a test on the Mach3 on this computer, which is not connected to a machine. I set the machine co-ordinates to +70 in X,Y and Z, the set the soft limits to + and - 20 in x,y and z. True enough, when I pressed the soft limits button, I got the same warning that you did.

You need to zero your Machine Co-ordinates. Press the machine co-ordinates button on Mach (the surround lights up) and this will alter the DRO's to display machine co-ordinates. The only way to zero these is to press the "Ref All Home" button. If you have no home switches, this should zero them - if you have the auto zero box ticked on your homing page..

Once you have Machine Co-ordinates zeroed, then press the Machine Co-ordinates button again, the DRO's will now display Program Co-ordinates. You can zero these manually  by pressing the zero x, zero y and zero z buttons. Your machine and program co-ordinates now have no offset. Go back to the machine co-ordinates.

If you had started this with your cutter in  say the bottom left hand corner of the table, then this is your soft limit poition for  minus  x and minus Y. If z is fully home then you can enter 0 in the z minus box as well.

If you jog to the other extremeties of the table, this is your soft limits + position.

If you switch on soft limits now, it should be OK.

Remeber this is working on Machine Co-ordinates.  The program can follow program co-ordinates just the same, but if it approaches the extremities defined by Machine Co-ords, the soft limits will kick in and stop the table, regardless of what is displayed in the Program Co-ords DRO's.

I must admit I have amended some screens on my displays to show just Machine Co-ords in small DROs under the main display. The main display I can leave on program Co-ords. I find this very easy to use as a quick check.

i will try this in he morning thanks

Just tried this Jim, works like a charm....Thank you very much!