Craig, You are the man! I just ran the code on my laptop and it appears to function like it should! so cool! Im going to go do the same thing on the machine now. I will post a video of it working. My end goal is to have this bit of code only happen when the ref all button is clicked. Report back shortly! Thank you Craig. Nick

Hi,
I personally would not have it run automatically with Ref All but be called from a screen button or physical button.
Motion which happens automatically has the tendency to catch you out on occasion and cause a crash.

The good thing about Mach4 is that you can make it do pretty anything you want. Provided you place the code appropriately
you can have any or all of those behaviours.

Craig

Trying to set up the actual machine using my renamed machine profile i dont have the option to access the regfile / create in the plugins drop down..?  its there on the wx4 screenset on my laptop. Is there something I'm missing? I can see the plugin in the c/mach4hobby plugin folder....

Hi,
the Regfile and the functionality it confers is a plugin.

On Configure/Mach/Plugins check Regfile by New Fangeled Solutions. You may have to restart Mach to have it recognise the new
plugin.

Craig

Craig! We have movement!!  .



Here is a video.... not sure how to post videos on here the proper way.

https://youtu.be/VIjoA5kOhTg

Hi Nick,
kool, its starting to come together. When you 'go to center' you need to be looking at the DROs displaying Machine Co-ordinates.

In the video the DROs were in work co-ords and no doubt due to non zero numbers in the G54 work offset they display numbers other than 10,-3,0.

Likewise your soft limits are in terms of machine co-ordinates, to have the DROs display work co-ords doesn't tell you anything.

Also if I understand your commentary the soft limits are 'inside' your home switches? If you hit Ref All part way through a session and the soft limits
are engaged, the normal situation, then the machine will fail to re-reference. Sorry but that means you've just broken perhaps the single most
important motion function in Mach! It is normal to have soft limits at or just 'outside' of the home switch. My soft limits are about 2mm outside of the
X,Y 0,0 home switch positions and the upper Z soft limit is 0, ie coincident with the Z home switch.

Experiment with the function but with the DROs set to display machine co-ordinates, you'll learn a great deal more about your machine and it limits if you
do so.

Craig

I will click it to machine co-oridinates and do some looking. Im not clear on what you are saying about being outside of the home switch. As it stands this is how my machine is configured. 3 home switches at the end of each axis. in the ess plugin I have my soft min max for say the X axis at.... min .250 max 18.0 ... I figured this being the soft limit would after the machine homed keep the machine .250' off the home switch? Does that make sense? Do you think I'm not using the softlimits right? Thanks - Nick

Hi,
if the home switch is at zero and the max that axis can go is 18 inches the I would reckon the soft limits be 0 and 18. Better, -0.1,18. That means that
the homw switch is within the boundaries of the machine. As you have set it up if you called Ref All once the soft limits are active it could not reach the
home switch being at 0 whereas the min softlimit is 0.25.

Craig

I totally understand what you are saying! I guess how i arrived at the .250 was wanting to keep the axis off the switch, like a buffer zone? This could be causing problems with the code after soft limits are turned on.... i might be crazy, but i thought mach would ignore the soft limits when reference all axis was commanded?



"When you Home the machine to the Home switches, Machine Zero is set. The Softlimits are in relation to Machine Zero.
What I do, is set my Home Offset to a small negative value, say -.5".
So after homing, when my home switch is then acting as a limit switch, I can go to the zero position on the axis and still be .5" away from the switch. If you then set softlimit min to 0, the machine will stop before it gets near the physical limit (home) switch."

(Google search) trying to better understand i have found mention of what i think I'm trying to do.. =)
would this interfere with reference all?

Hi,
I believe Mach3 worked that way and its probable that Mach4 does the same, I haven't experimented enough to be
sure.

My home switches are several mm short of the axis stops. I set my softlimit to be at or just outside the home switch.
That means that the home switch is within the allowable machine boundary. Given that is the case, whether the softlimits
are over-ridden when you hit Ref All doesn't matter to me, the home switch is within softlimits in either case.

With the  roller plunger switches widely used for home switches it is normal for the home switches to be well within the
boundaries and dedicated limit switches at the ends of the axes. That the home switches trigger during normal operations
is not going to upset anything.

Craig