I am putting together a system using a couple linear motor slides with Parker ViX-250IH servo drives. The drives have an internal homing routine that handles everything. I can trigger it from an input or let it home itself at startup.

Can I make Mach just send a signal out to start the homing routine and then watch for the home good signal from the drives?

Can I make Mach just send a signal out to start the homing routine and then watch for the home good signal from the drives?

Yes, it is the way I have done it for years on my Beaver mill and Computurn Lathe, send a signal from Mach and  the drives do Index homing and then tell Mach it has homed.

Hood

How do I set this up?

Make sure you do not have Home switches enabled in Ports and Pins as you do not need them when homing externally.
Next Operator menu then Edit Button Script and then click on the flashing RefAll button.
In the editor you will need to enter the VB suitable for what you want to do. As an example here is what I have on the lathe, I am using my PLC to send and accept the signals from the servo  so the I/O is via Modbus but you could just quite as easily use general I/O in ports and pins and alter the VB accordingly.


  Do
   Call SetModOutput (21,1)             'Activate ModOutPut 20
    If GetInput(19) Then Exit Do       'Loop until ModInPut 18 is seen
    Sleep (10)
    Loop
    End If
    Call SetModOutPut (21,0)            'DeActivate ModOutPut 20
    DoOemButton (1024)                           'Set Z axis Home
   

  Do
   Call SetModOutPut (20,1)
    If GetInput(18) Then Exit Do
    Sleep (10)
    Loop
    End If
    Call SetModOutPut (20,0)
    DoOemButton (1022)       



Hood

Thanks, I will give it a try. These drives basically have a PLC built in so I can just program to watch for a home signal to run that routine.

Pretty neat little motors, 10nm resolution.

Yes most drives that can do Index homing have basic PLC capability.

Hood