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Author Topic: How do I make the Mach 3 Ref All button work?  (Read 1754 times)

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How do I make the Mach 3 Ref All button work?
« on: May 29, 2017, 04:37:25 PM »

I am new to cnc and Mach3. I have a Wabeco F1210C set up with an ESS motion control board. Everything seems to work very well and I have managed to set it up to profile cut 2 mm thick Aluminium very cleanly with 3 mm end mills. Exactly what I was after.

How can I write a button script to use the Mach 3 Ref All button to home each axis automatically? It has me stumped. My set up has a home switch for each axis, all normally closed wired in series. The only way I have found to home each axis is one at a time from the Diagnostics screen. Starting with clicking Ref X, the table runs to its home switch then zeros the DRO. I then jog the table off the home switch and repeat for Y axis then Z axis.

I would like a button script for the Ref All button to do the same thing. I thought it should be straight forward.

DoButton(24) will run the table to the home switch and zero the DRO but I have found nothing to allow me to jog off the home switch so that I can repeat for the next axis . I thought using JogOn(axis,direction) should do the trick but no matter how I try JogOn() just seems to get ignored. What am I missing?

Thanks Keith

Offline ger21

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Re: How do I make the Mach 3 Ref All button work?
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2017, 07:21:01 PM »
When an axis homes, it travels towards the switch, until the switch trips, then backs up until the switch opens. That's the home position.
So there's no need to back off of the switch, as homing does that.

Ref All should be homing all of the axis automatically with the default macro.
Did you change it? If not, what is happening when you press Ref All?
Gerry

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JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html
Re: How do I make the Mach 3 Ref All button work?
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2017, 02:22:44 AM »
Yes thanks I understand what you say is how it should work but it does not work for me and there are plenty of others with a similar problem from what I can tell by searching with Google.
When an axis homes it moves to the home position operates the home switch, zeros the DRO but then does not back off the switch so cannot progress to home the other axes.  I have tried letting just Mach3 control this and also tried with the ESS plug in home configuration set up. I am guessing there is something else somewhere that I need to do.  If necessary I could change the Home switch wiring so each has its own input rather than wiring them all in series but from everything I have read it should work as I have wired it.
Keith

Offline ger21

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Re: How do I make the Mach 3 Ref All button work?
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2017, 08:20:27 PM »
What's most likely happening is that the noise or switch bounce is causing the switch to be triggered again immediately after the switch opens.
There's a noise filter setting in the ESS that should help.
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html
Re: How do I make the Mach 3 Ref All button work?
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2017, 03:57:30 AM »
Thanks Gerry. Yes setting some debounce time in ESS for the home switch fixed it.
Best regards Keith