Hi,
I have so many questions, but I will start with why in the world would Mach remove the Diagnostics tab in there screens??
The screen set is editable, so find the screen set that has the best Diagnostics tab in it, Copy and paste it into your current screen set.
The big question I have and has been beaten to death but I still cannot figure it out is why can I not get A) any of the axis to back off of the homing switch when I use the switch as a dual limit and home? B) if I disable the limits and just have the switches as home then all the axis back off except Z and I have to actually give it an offset to retract from the switch? C) why won't Z axis go to its work zero when called to but all others do?
Homing is a realtime procedure and it by definition handled by the motion controller autonomously. The questions you pose are actually about the motion controller behaviour not Mach4.
For example for some years it was possible if you were using a PoKeys57CNC to have the axis back off a certain distance of a home switch, but few, in fact none of the other motion controllers
had that feature. Over a period of time other manufacturers did so....but note, it was the responsibility of the motion control manufacturer to do so not Mach4.
Note this is different to Home Offset. That is a feature of Mach, and has been since the earliest days of Mach. When an axis homes it travels towards the home switch until the switch activates.
The machine slows to a stop and then backs up until the switch de-activates. Depending on the switch the back-up is only 1/2 a mm or so. The motion control reports to Mach that
the axis is now Homed, and Mach duly sets the machine coordinates of that axis to zero........unless you have programmed a Home Offset, it which case the machine coordinate of that
axis is set to the Home Offset instead.
This might occur because for instance your Home switch is 100mm from the end of the axis but there was too many things in the way to put it right at the end. So you would program the
Home Offset to be 100mm and when Mach set the machine coordinate it would set it at 100mm. So despite homing to a switch that was still 100mm away from the end when the Homing
procedure was finished Mach would still 'know' where the end is. That is what Home Offset is for.
But please note Home Offset does not move the machine anywhere, its just a numeric adjustment to the Homing routine. Various manufacturers call it by different things, but mostly some variation
of 'Back Off Distance'. But again note that this is in some ways redundant because all you had to do with a controller that did not have Back-Off, was to home the machine and then call a G0 Xnnn.
as the first move, and lo the axis would back off the required distance. All the manufacturers have done is to include that extra move command automatically....you don't even see it.
You could however replicate it...its not that hard.
C) why won't Z axis go to its work zero when called to but all others do?
If you look at the GotoWorkZero() function in the screen load script you'll see that it only includes the X and Y axes. If you want it to include the Z axis just put it in....but be prepared for some
major crashes!!! In fact if you go to do this will you let me know...I could do with the entertainment!!! I joke. The last thing you want is the Z axis diving down to the Work Zero, commonly
the surface of the material. If you made as much as a 1mm mistake in your Work Zero you'd drive the tool hard into the material.
As I say put that code in there if you like but remember you asked for it.
I've been using Mach4 for eight years, and I've never found it necessary to drive the Z axis down into the danger zone that aggressively. Nor have I found it necessary to have an automated
back off distance, the machine homes and sits there waiting for me to jog to a convenient work location. If I felt the need I would attach the back off movement command at the completion of the
Homing procedure and not bother my motion control with it at all. I suppose I could use my ESS as it has back off feature, I've never had need to use it.
Craig