Need Help!- Do i HAVE to use home and limit switches?

[eran k]

My small machine is almost done, all axis are working from Mach 3. so it's setup time now.
to be honest i'm not sure that i fully understand what i need to do,i know there is a "soft limit" feature in mach 3,but how do i use it?
also is it a must to have home switches?
what are home switches for? what type of switches,where should they be located and where are they connected?

Please explain as clear as possible.
Thanks in advance

Eran

[native34]

You can get by without home and limit switches but it would be alot safer and better results if you do use them. Homing switches will allow you to reference your machine to the same spot everytime so your repeatability will be more accurate. depending on your setup limit switches will save you from frying one or all of your motors (i.e. Servo motors)if you are running stepper motors you can get by without limit switches. If you are running Servo motors you really should be using limits as these motors can flake out and run into the axis end and if you don't catch it it can damage the machine or the motor.

[eran k]

Ok, so if i dont have home switche can i still operate the machine? do i need to do somthing in the mach3 software?
and how do i set soft limits with mach3?

Thanks again
Eran

[jalessi]

Eran,

See attached images for soft limits.

Jeff...

[eran k]

Thanks
are these the numbers i should use or it's just an example?

[jalessi]

The numbers depend on how far you would like the axis to travel.

[ger21]

To accurately use softlimits, though, you need to home the machine to a repeatable position.

I don't have any switches on my machine. I jog it into the hard stops, and use that as my home position. I set up softlimits, but never use them, as I'd have to turn them off to "home" the machine and never bothered turning them back on.

[Andre' B]

One way to not have home switches and still have very repeatable positioning is like this.

Put a scratch mark on the sliding part of the axis, and a pointer on the stationary part.
Put a scratch mark on the rotating part of the screw coupler, and a pointer to it.

Homing procedure.
Jog until the mark on the slide and its pointer line up.
Slow down the jog and move in the plus direction until the mark on the coupler and its pointer line up.
Hit the home is here button for that axis.
Repeat for each other axis on the machine.

You should easily get within 0.0005" and if you use a magnifying glass to line up the coupler mark and pointer 0.0001" should be within reach.

A little slow but you only need to do it one time each time you start up the system and it does not need any inputs.

Edit:
I am assuming Mach has something like the home is here buttons that EMC has. Actually on EMC it is, home is this distance from here.