Adding Limit Switches to my Gatton CNC - Part 2
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- Опубліковано 31 жов 2017
- Adding Limit Switches to my Gatton CNC - Part 2 - Mach3 Settings
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In this video, I’ll clean up a couple of things I forgot in Part 1, then we’ll get into Mach3 and configure the homing and limit switches. After that, we’ll get on the CNC and test the limit switches, and home the machine.
As usual, if you have any comments or questions, please put ‘em in the comment section below.
Thanks for watching!
Link to Andrew Hague’s Thingiverse page:
www.thingiverse.com/oldenglis...
Link to 3D Hubs:
www.3dhubs.com/
Link to Paul Campbell’s Homing Switch and Cartesian Coordinate System video:
• MACH 3 CNC CONTROL SO...
Links to products and supplies used in this video:
Limit Switches:
Pack of 5: amzn.to/2ClFBlh
Pack of 10: amzn.to/2wL0kZY
Pack of 20: amzn.to/2wOCahk
18/2 Shielded Stranded Cable: thd.co/2la64tF
15mm X 30mm Drag Chain: amzn.to/2gCnc9V
Here’s the link to my Gatton CNC Build Playlist!
• Building a Gatton CNC
For more info on a Gatton CNC kit of your own, check out Dave Gatton’s Home Page at:
www.davegatton.com/
I’m a proud founding member of the Maker’s Media Network.
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marklindsaycnc.com/index.php/p...
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I appreciate your support!
This video is for informational and entertainment purposes only. - Навчання та стиль
this is the best instructional i have yet seen. . . and the screen is beautiful. thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge .
Plain and simple this is a fantastic video, its clear and
makes it so simple to set up Mach 3 for limits and home, I am a total newbie
never played with Mach 3 or anything like it and found this brilliant
so easy to understand. Thank You
Thank you, Brian! I hope you found it useful!
Hi Mark, thank you so much for your time and patience explaining step by step the set up in Mach3, so many videos miss out some of the important steps that you have covered so well. I will stop reading about it and hopefully get on with it :-) Thanks from across the pond :-)
Just to add a little bit more. My breakout board is obviously different from yours (JP-3163B) and so some of the pin numbers were not the same and I kept getting the red Emergency LED come up on the Z Axis and was not able to reset and back away from it. There was obviously some sort of conflict there. In the end I moved the Stop button to a different pin and lo and behold all is well, plus the Emergency Stop button actually does what it says on the tin as opposed to just filling in a hole in the front of the cabinet. Again, many thanks, take care. :-)
Great Video Mark! I've just gotten around to adding limit/homing switches to my machine. I was having problems with the false limits coming in. I set the debounce to 100 (like a saw in another video), so I'll try the 1000 or higher. I was just getting ready to build some opto isolators, to cut the noise down. I also down sized it from a 6' X 9' to a 6' X 6' bed. Thanks Geoff
Lookin good mark cant wait to see those t tracks go on I'm about to start building my stand next week for mine.
Thanks Mark for another helpful video, I'll be setting this up on mine this weekend
Mark, thanks Brother, just installed, wired and set up my homing and limit switches. Great information as always, keep the videos coming and I too am getting closer to getting my GarageWorx CNC up and making chips.
Glad it helped you out, Arron! Can't wait to see your GarageWorX making the chips fly!
Excellent video, your presentation of how to setup limit switches in Mach 3 is what I was looking for. The pace and detail at which you presented was just right. Thank You.
Thanks for watching. I hope it helped you out.
Another great video Mark, as usual.
This is an awesome video Mark Thanks so much! will certainly come back for a refresher!
Best video on this subject ever
Great video man, always good to see something explained in detail correctly !
Thks for posting!
Thanks for watching, Scott! I hope it helps!
Great info Mark, thanks for sharing.
great job I am just getting started in the cnc world and you are clearing up a lot of settings that I have ben looking for I love the way that you show were wires go and the settings that you have to do mach 3
Thanks very much, James. I really do appreciate it.
This is the second CNC I've built (the third gantry for a CNC,) but I'm in no way an expert. I try to gear my videos toward the absolute beginner who might be confused by information overload, or just doesn't know where to look for answers. I do it this way because 3 years ago, I was that guy. There's just so much info out there that it's easy to get conflicting answers to what some think are simple questions. I don't assume anything - I just try to put together all the info I've received from several great sources, and pass it along. If I get something wrong, I hope someone will let me know so I can correct it. There's too much bad info out there, and I don't want to be another source of it.
Good luck with your CNC! Have fun with it!
Great video, the machine looks great, glad everything worked out well.
Thank you very much for everything, Andrew. I think the machine looks great with all of the parts and jigs you sent me. I really do appreciate all of your help and encouragement. Thank you for making the files for all of those parts public, and available for everyone to download.
Mark, another great video, I really enjoy your explanations, thanks again
Thanks for watching, Arron. I hope it helps you out.
great video. very informative , thanks Mark
Excellent video, many thanks!
Nice one Mark. A 2 teeshirt epic. Great info for those wanting to install switches.
Cheers
Peter
Thanks! You have a good eye for detail, Peter. Now I need to up my game to a 3 t-shirt spectacular!
Thanks for the great information Mark. I am enjoying the series.
Thanks very much, Paul!
Very in-depth software instruction, a very good reference that needs to be reviewed often, great teaching style, who do you like for instruction on this software that is a great presenter? Great job! I am so sold on the Ganton CNC, with a bunch of
embilshements, like you, have done! for those of us sitting on the fence there needs to a step one, two, three, so like catagolue your build series to dovetail with the official Dave Gaton build series.
Thank you very much, George. I do appreciate it.
I did put all of the Gatton CNC build series into a playlist, which can be found here: ua-cam.com/play/PLLuYLaC3-QRO2dNnYsXfPjgpSMHU5mCey.html
They're listed in the order I completed each step in, for easy reference.
This second playlist is for all of the accessory videos, again, in order of completion: ua-cam.com/play/PLLuYLaC3-QROCEHFBDvNV1Do5vMsWFANb.html
I'll be doing some more software videos soon!
Great video, excellent explanations and very well understandable. Thanks!
Thanks for checking it out!
THANK YOU MARK SLOWLY BUT SURELY IM BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THE MEANING AND USED OF EVERY DETAIL IN MACH 3. GOD BLESS. I WANTED TO SET UP MY CNC MACHINE THE YOU HAVE SET UP THE YOURS IN THESE VIDEOS I HOPE I COULD FOLLOW AND HAVE IT WORK PROPERLY. AND HOPE THAT IF ENCOUNTER SOME PROBLEMS YOU WILL HELP ME.
Thank you so much for sharing this!
Got a new sub 😁
thanks Mark.for the information with this video i will fix my cnc limit switch's problems..
Great video. Thank you.
Great job sir thanks
Amazing the amount of things you can do dude!!
Thank you, Eloy! I'm getting very good at putting info from various different sources together, that's for sure.
Great video as usual, i always learn something new. I didn't know about the option in general config about the slave axis but do now. The misstake i made when doing my setup was in home and limit. My gantry is my Y axis so i have A axis slaved to X axis and in home and limits i had X axis checked reverse and A axis with no check, and X home Neg checked and A axis not checked. So when i tried to home X axis tried to home neg and A axis tried to home pos.
Oh ouch! I remember reading that in one of your Community Forum posts. Glad to hear that there wasn't any permanent damage. That can get pretty scary.
Thank you
nice
This is the best tautorial about limits and homing wery precize sxplaetion. thanks.
Thank you very much! I hope it helps you out!
The more I see your video the more I learn, is the most interesting and detailed explanation that I've ever seen, thank you very much, and if I could ask you something more would be possible for you to go deeper explaining the part of "MotorHome/Soft limits", and why do we have to egnore that part, and thanks again for your response.
You only need 3 limit switches. Use these three to set your machine co-ordinates 0,0,0 and switch on soft limits. Less wiring and less chances of EMI.
What about separating the Y axis motors in case one has missed a step, so that when they home it will insure that both are even. Is there a way to do that? Love your videos I have learned alot thank you.
Thank you so much my dear ، in did learned a lot ،very nice and understanble demo ،
Please explaine more about normaly close and normaly open limit switches setting ، good luck
My dear i know electronice is very coplicated , but yet in much 3 there are some question about auto setting home and limit witch pop up asked about printer port
I have usb ethernet on my BOB with localy digital scales attached .
The gentleman you recommended he explain on very easy way to understand thank you for that but i have one issue what ever I’m doing to set my limit switches it doesn’t work i have done everything exactly what you did switches on series, NO close position on switches, port and pins and 24volt DC on switches do i have to do more settings or not also on mach3 on diagnostic section check the leds for limit switches all OFF check by pressing each one they become ON I don’t know what i have done wrong your help will much appreciated
Just use one input with three limit switches and set up soft limits. Home when you turn on your machine and you're set. . Less wiring, less inputs used and less chances of EMI issues.
Please make a video How to slave A-exis with Y-exis and how to configure Homing and Limits on Mach3
This video is literally how to configure Homing and Limits in Mach3. For how to slave the A axis to the Y axis, check out Dave Gatton's video. Go to 5 minutes and 30 seconds into the video - that's where he starts talking about that. ua-cam.com/video/cCXeezpJVhw/v-deo.html
Hi Mark, this past weekend I added limit switches to my CNC Router and couldn't get Mach 3 configured to make them work as limit switches, the Homing worked but the travel limit didn't work??? Last night I configured Mach 3 the same way as you present in this video, everything worked perfectly. Thank You for this presentation.
So is everything working the way you want it to work now?
Everything is working well and as expected thanks to your easy to follow explanation of how to setup Mach 3.
Very glad to hear it!
I’m new on CNC business and practicing on mach3 what you think if i move to mach4 there is any benefits
Question? would you put 2 homing switch's on your Gantry so it squares up the gantry to the table with both motors
Long time no see, Charlie! Yes, I should mount 2 switches on my gantry, but I haven't gotten there yet.
Hello sir,
First of all, thanks for your time and perfectly clear video. It helped me a lot!
I'm a bit confused about the active low system...
Today i've installed my limit switches, and i have connected them in a normally closed loop (safest way).
I have tested it several times, and if a wire is cut or not making proper contact it will enter E Stop mode. It also stops me from going on with operation if I launch the software but don't turn on the stepper and board power supply.
So, it's all working good, but I have it set with Active Low ON.
I thought it had to be off, to work correctly in a closed loop. For me, it will only work this way... Lol
Is it OK in this case? Or am I missing something? 🤔
All controllers are slightly different. If your limit switches work with Active Low turned ON, but not when Active Low is turned OFF (and you've tested them to make sure of this,) then that's the way they need to be to work with your controller. Just make sure you test each switch individually to make sure they trigger the the e-stop/reset before putting the machine into motion. Also test to make sure they work when homing by manually triggering each switch before each axis gets to its HOME position. Of course, you would do that no matter what, so I probably didn't need to tell you that...
Yes, it's all tested and homing correctly (thanks to your video) 😁
Once again, thank you so much!
Hi Mike, I enjoy your detailed videos. I notice you are using the X Box controller (as I do) but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it to "step" in small increments. i can get it to drive okay, just not step. Have you made a video on this? if not, any chance you could? Thanks, Dean.
Hi Dean. It's funny that you ask this question today. I was just showing someone how to do it yesterday.
I haven't done a video on it, but it's pretty straight forward. In Mach3, go to the CONFIG menu, click Config Plugins. Hit the yellow CONFIG button at the left end of the "XBox 360 controller plugin" row. I have the A button on the controller set for Jog Mode INC/CONT. Find that in the drop down menu under whichever button you want to program and select it, click OK, then click OK on the Plugin menu. Then go back to the CONFIG menu, scroll down to the bottom and click Save Settings. You may have to restart Mach3 for that setting to take effect. It's been so long since I've done it, I really don't remember.
Sorry Mark, I wrote Mike for some reason. I’ll give that a go when I get back from a work trip and see how I go
Thanks for this excellent explanation of limits and homing setup.
Are NC limit and homing switches always connected to the INPUT pins of the BOB? The manufacturer of my BOB says to connect them to the OUTPUT pins. This is the opposite of what I have read and understood. Could his board be different in some way to cause this reversal?
I’ve got all my switches wired into the control box but not connected to anything, until I’m 100% positive as to where they should go.
ALWAYS follow your equipment manufacturer's instructions to avoid damaging it. If you have any questions about that, contact them and get clarification. People make mistakes, and typos do happen, but it's better to find that out from them.
@@MarkLindsayCNC yesterday after two months of trying to find out exactly which pins, port and and if it was really the output that the switches should be connected to like they initially said. They admitted they were wrong and they should be connected to the inputs. I’m so glad that I didn’t connect it up like they initially told me who knows what would have happened.
Glad to hear you got things sorted out. It seemed odd to me that they would have said to connect them to the output side of the BoB, but I'm not an expert, and different manufacturers have different ways of doing things. Most likely what would have happened was they wouldn't have worked when you tested them. (And DO test them before you put the machine into motion.) Another step complete! Onward!
Great content you help us with, I just have a question here about slave motor A axis, I worked with Lcnc before and now I'm trying Mach3 and it seems that homing Y axis and his slave A only need one limit switch, in Lcnc each axis has its own even if it's a slave that way if the gantry gets off squared the homing removes that error, I have not been able to achieve the same result with Mach3, I know I must be missing something please correct me as I know I'm wrong. Thanks
You haven't missed anything. I haven't added a second switch to my slave axis yet, but that's one of the things I plan on doing this year. You can be sure there will be a video about it when I add that switch.
@@MarkLindsayCNC ok thanks
another good one.......
Thank you, John!
Thanks for all the help Mark but can you tell me why may machine does not back off of my limits once the switch is hit. . also the Auto Limit Over Ride has no affect .Any advice would be welcomed
It's not supposed to automatically back off the switch when you hit a limit. It stops so you can take care of a problem if there is one. You'll have to click the RESET button, then you can move the machine off of the limit switch if you have the Auto Limit Override enabled. If you don't have that enabled, you'll have to turn off the controller and manually move the machine off the limit switch.
Mr. Lindsay Thank you for your reply; My break-out board is connected to Mach-3 via USB. In your Homing and limit switch install video you demonstrate how once you home your machine and your switches are hit, your machine backs off each axis a bit . That's what my machine does not do. I have turned on my Auto Override but it does nothing even after I reset it. Would having all of my limit switches connected together and connected to one pin cause this problem? Also I have tried configuring my switches as active low, that too did not help. I don't wish to take to much of your time; perhaps you could suggest one of your other videos for the DIY er that's not quite there yet. thanks in advance.
Okay, it might be time to go to the Mach3 Support forum and ask your question over there. I don't use a USB motion controller or breakout board - I run the old school parallel cable on my setup. Sorry I'm no help to you!
My work station is to the right side of the CNC, could I have it home to the right front rather than either right rear or left front?
You can, but you'll need to get into the HOMING/LIMITS screen and check Home Neg for whichever axis will put it in the home position you want it in. Just try it in the X and Y axis until you get the right combination that suits you. Keep a finger close to the e-stop (or reset) button so you can stop it if it starts going someplace it shouldn't. Once you hit on the right combination, you're all set. Just remember to go back to the CONFIG menu and click Save Settings to make that change permanent.
Could you please explain how we can change screen what your have
Unfortunately, the Mach3 screen set I was using in this video is no longer available. If you go to the Mach3 website (link below,) you can see all of the screen sets that are currently available for use with Mach3. DO know that Mach3 is no longer being supported, so some of these screen sets may not work with some Windows 10 updates, or with Windows 11 at all. Check with the screen set author for any bug fixes or updates to the screen set.
www.machsupport.com/downloads-updates/screensets/
I have positive stops on my X and Y axis, and the Z top. And will use the Y Home and Y slave stops To square the gantry periodically.
My question is setting the limit switch position relative to the positive stop. I’m thinking to set the activation point of the switch 0.050” prior to connecting positive stop does that sound correct? I don’t want to risk bending the switch arm if the switch is located too from the positive stop.
That sounds reasonable. You could go a little more than 0.050 if you're comfortable doing that. I have proximity switches, so nothing ever actually makes contact, but they're set ahead of the positive stops on my machine by about .25 inches. More important when homing is the speed at which the axes are moving when you home. Mine is set to home at 5 ipm. I jog the machine so that all 3 axes are close to the switches, then home. It only takes a second to do.
I am going to set up limit switches first, I do have Hall effect switches I want to switch to some time in the future, do you have a VT on this type of switches?
No, I'm sorry - I do not. I got the Pepperl & Fuchs proximity sensor kit that Avid carries when I got my Avid 4848 Pro CNC router, and never looked back. It was 100% plug and play, easy to dial in, and have been 100% trouble free. I'm glad I went with them.
@@MarkLindsayCNC OK I’m going with proximity switches, are they wired in series (two on same axis) like the mechanical switches in this video.
Mine are not. Each switch is wired to the controller box separately. As I said - the system I have is 100% plug and play. I didn't build it. I just bought it, plugged it all in, and never looked back.
Dear Mark,
On my homing process only 2 axis work (z and y). X axis does not run to home position. But if hit "go to zero" botton, all axis move to zero position, what happen?
Double-check your wiring first. Make sure you have everything connected correctly. Then get into Mach3 and make sure you have the correct Ports and Pins entered in the correct locations, then make sure all of the switches are enabled.
@@MarkLindsayCNC All conection is correctly connected, that why "go to zero" instruction was running normaly, it mean all axis goto zero position and the machine stoped when hit the limit switch. Fortunately it was solved 2 days ago without any corrective action but running "Ref. All Home" repetitively several times. This problem look like bugs in Mach3 software.
Thanks Mark for your kindness.
the links for the switches don`t seem to work
Fixed now. Sorry about that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I do appreciate it.
where did you get your brake out board I got one but I do not no witch terminal is ground
I got my breakout board from Xylotex, but they are no longer available. The board you have should be marked. Look for pin numbers marked on the board - there should be one marked GND or with a negative symbol. (-)
I went Dave Gatton VIDEO on limit switches and clicked on his description and it went to electronics salon d-270 I think the ground is mark S I hook it up as ground and it works but with both switches on the x hook and the y hook together it will not work if I take lose the limit switch on the x and y it home I thank I am going to have to put each limit switch on it on pin and reconfig on port and pins what do you thank
Without knowing how you wired your switches (in series or in parallel) or how you set them up, I'm afraid I'm not much help. Go over to the Diagnostics tab in Mach3 and look to see if any of the M1, M2, or M3 LEDs are lit when the switches are not activated. Also check the wiring. If you wired the switches in series, you should have the positive lead connected to the NC terminal on one switch, and the negative lead connected to the NC terminal on the other switch. Connect a lead from the COM terminal on one switch to the COM terminal on the other switch. You should have no problems if they're all hooked up correctly.
on the y I have the black wires from the home and limit tie to gather and the two red tie to gather black to ground red to pin 12 and no lights are lit but it will not work unless i disconnect one of the red wires and it will work on that switch
I'd suggest going back and watching both of my limit switch videos again. It sounds like you have the switches wired incorrectly.
Don’t understand the machine zero settings. Did you move all the axis to where you want the home position to be and zero the machine settings, is that when the Home switches are made or a fixed distance off of the switches??????
You didn’t mention safe settings, if you are using limits you wouldn’t need safe settings right?
Thanks for all the details about limits and home.
All CNC machines have 2 coordinate systems, and you're confusing the two. Homing switches and the Zero settings for them are used with the Machine Coordinates. Machine Coordinates are used to tell Mach3 where the spindle/router is in relation to the machine table. You're talking about the Work Coordinates. Work coordinates tell Mach3 where the spindle/router is in relation to the piece of material you mounted to the table, and are getting ready to cut. When you create a file in VCarve, Aspire, Fusion 360, or whatever, you're working with the Work Coordinates system. These homing switches, and the settings for them, have nothing to do with that. There are no "safe settings" in Machine Coordinates. I hope that helps!
Mark Lindsay CNC sorry didn’t make myself clear.
Machine settings, I think. You must have to zero or set them somewhere at one time to establish the CNC bed. That’s what I’m primarily trying to get at. Or are you saying you don’t have to do anything to set the machine settings. I’m missing something.
For eleven years I didn’t look at machine settings, didn’t have and switches, never set any soft limits. But now I’m so tired of setting the Z zero with paper, a real pain when changing multiple bits in a job. I bought the 2010 software so I’ve installed the switches and now I need to figure out how to set all this stuff up.
Maybe it’s the case where the settings are so simple that everybody knows that, I don’t and I got to understand it.
Thanks
Okay, that's the point I was trying to make. Homing switches won't help you set Z zero after a tool change. You'd need a touch plate for that, or use the paper method as you have been doing. Again, all of that uses Work Coordinates - Homing Switches only deal with the Machine Coordinates.
With Homing Switches, you tell Mach3 which area you want to be the "Home Position" on your machine table. Every time you start up the controller, you go into Machine Coordinates by clicking the "Machine Coord's" button, under the DROs. The Z axis will start moving in the correct direction, looking for that home position. When the axis makes contact with the switch, the machine stops, then backs off just enough to break contact with the switch. It then sets the Z DRO to zero in Machine Coordinates. It then does the same for the X, then the Y (the order may be different on other machines.) When all 3 axes have finished that, and the DROs all read 0, it's done. You've homed the machine. You click the "Machine Coord's" button again to go back into Work Coordinates, and you're through homing the machine.
None of that has anything to do with setting your Z zero after a tool change. For that, you'll want to make or buy a touch plate and set it up. Here's a link to the video I used to help me set up my touch plate: ua-cam.com/video/G4DeVa8rzA0/v-deo.html
Mark Lindsay CNC
The ZERO I was referring to was the X zero and Y zero, at their HOME position.
That said, did you move the X and Y axis to the Front of the table, their HOME position and then set the machine settings to ZERO?
If you don’t set the machine zero there where do you set it?
When you HOME the machine, you put Mach3 into Machine Coordinates, click REF ALL HOME, and the machine goes through its homing routine as I explained above. That sets the Machine Coordinates.
Great info Mark, thanks for sharing.