Limit & Homing Switches

[kawazuki]

Ok -tried this in Mach Mill forum with no responses so.......

As the Gecko 540 has only 5 inputs, can 2 switches be used for each axis and wired in series and connected to ONE pin only ie. ++x, --x and home x all set to, say, pin 2?
Will Mach recognise that it is travelling in a minus direction and trigger --x & home and when its travelling in a plus direction, trigger the ++x? If it needs 2 pins per axis - i'm gonna run out bearing in mind one is the e-stop!

Or is it best just to use --x / home and set soft limits for opposite limits of table movement and only take 3 of the 5 available pins?

Any diagrams or pictures of set-ups on a X2 mill would be appreciated.

My frazzled brain thanks you

[acondit]

On my 3 axis router I use 1 pin for both xlimits and home, 1 pin for both y limits and home and 1 pin for both z limits and home. (Actually I use one of the home switches for each axis as both a limit and home.) However, I am using EMC2.

Usually the control software doesn't need to know whether it hit a positive of a negative limit. It just needs to stop and let you decide how to remedy the situation. Using a limit switch as home requires a little more smarts on the part of the controller, it has to know that it is homing and to ignore the limit and treat it as home during that operation. It then must also be able to back off of the (limit) switch and set the home position.

Alan

[nda22]

I recently setup limits on my x3, I wired all the switches in series and I used pin 15 for all limits then set Mach to use limits as homes. Mach stops all axis when any limits is hit and when you push the reference all home it sends Z to the plus limit then X to the plus limit then y to the plus limit and homes. It works really well.

[acondit]

I recently setup limits on my x3, I wired all the switches in series and I used pin 15 for all limits then set Mach to use limits as homes. Mach stops all axis when any limits is hit and when you push the reference all home it sends Z to the plus limit then X to the plus limit then y to the plus limit and homes. It works really well.

I set my limits up in one series loop to begin with but if you were working close to more than one limit switch it was sometimes difficult to figure out which axis to move. Also EMC2 would think that the limit had been hit on all three axii and put up three different dialogs telling about the error.

Alan