hi all just upgrading as usual. i have been upgrading bridgeport mills for awhile servo and steppers just coming out with a stepper upgraded to ac servo its running sweet. the problem i have and this applies to all mills i have done mach 3 and 4 is what to set for z axis i have set -.125 for home offset soft min -5.00 soft max -.125 this works but i dont know if it works right. i have set max to zero and home to zero and other things experimenting but have never found the right answer that i am sure of. so i thought i would ask anybody who has set z soft limits on a mill what they came up with or can you tell me what is wrong with my approach thank you
mark

Your approach looks similar to what I do.  To test give yourself a little more clearance to the actual machine limits, then slow the jogging way down to test.

I freely admit to jogging full throttle into soft limits set at zero without problems,  the axis smoothly decelerates to stop at 0.000  However, all my limit switches are on adjustable devices that are far from the actual machine end of travel.

Remember, soft limits only effect jogging, not running code and soft limits have to be enabled soft limits override disabled and the axis all referenced.  I have found states where the soft limits button is green but the machine has lost reference.  I thinks its something with the way I have my motor error signal setup.

hi thanks for the reply. i am close to the machine limit on z but i want to get as much travel as i can and its a servo machine so i expect it to have less trouble being closer to the limit i could be all wet.

i have also had times when the axis think they are referenced and they are not but as yet have not been able to conclusively prove as to weather its a mach/controller/computer problem or me.

also as i understand and have seen soft limits affect running code also if you tell mach to cycle start and you have a soft limit violation the program wont run and you get a notification on the status bar

mark