Hi,

Since A is a slave to Y is it even possible to have all 4 motors home independently?

That is Mach3 thinking....you do not slave that way in Mach4. You have a Y axis master and upto to four slaves to that master. The A axis has got
nothing to do with it.

Yes it is possible to home motors independently....however if you have one motor on one end of the gantry and another motor on the other end they
need to move together or you will wreck the gantry. It is possible to jiggle one motor back and forth a wee bit to square the gantry....if that's what your thinking.

Whats more the ESS does this automatically if thats how you set it up.

Note the attached pic has 4 axes, X,Y,Z and A and a slave motor (motor4) on the Y axis.

Craig

You have a Y axis master and upto to four slaves to that master.
I have it set up that way. I have no issues with this machine as it sets and works perfectly right now. The only problem is there are times that I make a mistake and a motor will skip a tooth or something happens that takes my gantry out of square. This is a 5' gantry and its super easy for this to happen.

It is possible to jiggle one motor back and forth a wee bit to square the gantry....if that's what your thinking.
I spent hours squaring up all axis. I am within .001" in 4ft and jiggling a motor isn't very accurate. I now have both homing switches exact with each other. For some reason I cannot get the slave to home independently

Yes it is possible to home motors independently.
Is there a doc or video that shows how to do this? I have tried to set this up as I have the other motors to home and when I do the motor just stops and is no longer responsive. I am sure I am missing something quite easy but I cant see it.
I am not sure if you have to unslave this motor and make it the A axis master or if I can keep it a slave and home independently of the Y master. What I am doing isn't working. I cant even get the green homing light to come on for that motor

Hi,
do you have an A axis?. If not then forget the A axis it has nothing to do with your machine. In Mach4 you operate on a motor,
say motor1 or motor4 or whatever. You can move any motor individually if required but ordinarily if motor1 is Master and motor4 is Slave then they
move together, after all that is what Master/Slave means.

What motion control are you using? The Ethernet SmoothStepper can automatically square a gantry to two squarely set Home switches.
You do have to set it up correctly but it is otherwise automatic. What it does in effect is Home the two motors simultaneously but independently
to their respective Home switches.

You can programmatically link and unlink motors which in turn allows you to write sophisticated squaring routines....but you should
not really have to do that. Take advantage of what the motion control manufacturer put into the controller for that purpose.

Craig

do you have an A axis?. If not then forget the A axis it has nothing to do with your machine
I get what are saying but its hard to forget when you are taught to set up that way. Everything is configured to an Axis as you see in the pic.

What motion control are you using?
Warp9 v283. I would not be apposed to upgrading if you thought I needed? This ESS is over 10yrs old now

The Ethernet SmoothStepper can automatically square a gantry to two squarely set Home switches.
You do have to set it up correctly but it is otherwise automatic. What it does in effect is Home the two motors simultaneously but independently
to their respective Home switches.
Thats exactly what I was hoping for. Not sure why I am struggling with this so badly but I have changed every I would think was right and its not liking it. I assume I am missing something in the logic part of thing?

Take advantage of what the motion control manufacturer put into the controller for that purpose.
This is what I was hoping. I am looking for easy for now. I am a little confused I do not see other posts or video's of this same issue. This has to be a common function others are struggling with.

A few pics to look at. Might see something simple

Hi,
so you do not have an A axis??? Then why have you got an A axis defined in the Mach4 plugin?? That's a major source of your problem right there.
I don't care whether that whats you are familiar with in Mach3....this is Mach4 and its method of handling slaving different and is light years ahead.
Do yourself a favour and ditch all and every assignment you have made for a A axis, including the Step, Dir, Home and Limit pins.

Warp9 v283. I would not be apposed to upgrading if you thought I needed? This ESS is over 10yrs old now

The ESS is continually developed, so while the electronic part may remain the same, or nearly so, the firmware is constantly being improved, an is not
years old but days or weeks old at worst. Remember the ESS has an FPGA, which is if you like a software configurable 'computer'. If you find that your
currently defined 'computer' cannot do as you want it to, then use firmware to re-define the 'computer' to whatever suits your need.

Thats exactly what I was hoping for. Not sure why I am struggling with this so badly but I have changed every I would think was right and its not liking it.

The ESS has had this auto-squaring function for many years, you should take advantage of it. You will find out more about it if you go to the Warp9TD Forum.
Why this thread is on the Mach3 Discussion board beats me? You need and want information about Mach4....then why the Mach3 board?.  You need and want
information about the ESS auto-squaring function then ask in the appropriate forum.

There are several threads in the Mach4 Discussion board that deal with this subject and matters closely related to it in the last few weeks alone, but the real gen on how to set up
the ESS is the Warp9TD Forum.

This has to be a common function others are struggling with.

Yes there are others whom have stumbled over this but they ask the questions in the right places and then accept and implement the answers and the problem
is solved. You seem however seem to ignore the answers because its 'not the way I did things in Mach3'....and guess what; you'll never get it to work if you insist
of conflating Mach3 and Mach4.

Craig

IM sorry I didn't realize I was talking with THE GOD OF MACH. I didnt post on MACH 3 its on the general discussions page because this is a Mach 3 and 4 related issue. I am only looking for help NOT SOME ASS that feels he knows better than anyone else. You replied to this thread so GO AWAY IF YOUR NOT INTERESTED IN GOOD ADVISE! This set up was suggested by people that teach this stuff for a living I didn't just do this for fun.

You seem however seem to ignore the answers because its 'not the way I did things in Mach3'....and guess what;
What the hell are you talking about??

I've seen you belittle others on this site as well and its pathetic.

Hi,

You seem however seem to ignore the answers because its 'not the way I did things in Mach3'....and guess what;
What the hell are you talking about??

Because you are trying to use an A axis as a slave to the Y axis....that is how it was done in Mach3 but it is not done that way in Mach4 and
will not work that way in Mach4.

I've seen you belittle others on this site as well and its pathetic.

If my posts have offended you or belittled you please accept my apologies....it is not my intention to do so.

If you wish to find more information about setting up the ESS for auto squaring then try Andy at the Warp9 forum. I don't recall seeing videos on
it but there is plenty of instructions about it.

Craig

Im not trying to be a jerk and I apologize for a rude post that's not my nature, but I am sucking on a fire hose trying to intake as much info as possible and it is extremely frustrating when you search through hundreds of posts looking for information and you can't find it. You told me to change what I am accustomed to but change it to what, Motor 1,2,3? I will try changing these configs at some point when I am more confident but all is working right now except these few bugs. Everything I see says to import from Mach3 to Mach4 and that's what I did. I am a little disappointed Mach hasn't done a better job of illustrating some of this stuff. In my head what I am looking for should be as basic and normal as pushing the power button. Squaring a gantry is a must in most CNC applications I have ever seen but again I am a little new to routing as you can see. Again I appreciate your input that you have given me.

Hi,
I remember how frustrating I found converting to Mach4 from Mach3 years ago. I'm surprised you did not hear me, I'm only 14000km's away and I was really
shouting loud! It took me a couple of weeks to get the basics in hand and another two before I was comfortable. Another month after that I was coding my own stuff,
but it did not happen immediately.

My guess is that you have been given advice by people whom are familiar with Mach3 but without realising that certain aspects of Mach4 are strikingly different.

This is one area where Mach3 and Mach4 differ, and if you apply your Mach3 thinking it will lead you well and truly astray.

On the Axis Mapping tab assign:
X axis =motor 0
Y axis master= motor1   slave= motor3
Z axis motor 2

Per the attached pic

Now assign the motor Step and Direction pins and My suggestion is set the Home pins as well.
Note the are four Home switches, one for each motor, so two Home switches for the Y axis and one each for the X and Z axes.
Note also that I applied 1000 units of noise filtering on the four home inputs....just as a precautionary matter.

Per the attached pic.

To be perfectly honest I would not bother with Limit switches as yet. You can double up a switch to be a Limit and a Home switch....but it adds complication
that you do not want yet. Once you get the machine Homing properly and you understand how and why it does so THEN start adding Limits. You will know then
if you make a Limit assignment that screws with your Homing you may have to reconsider how you are using Limits....but not yet.

Craig