I am running a CNC mill that has no limit or homing switches - the control board is the Servo3IO. I see it has terminals for limit switches but I have not yet figured out how to mount switches on this machine - so in the meantime, I was hoping to find out if I can set soft limits. I recently took out 4 power mosfets by hitting the hard stop when I set my part zero too close to one end of the X travel. I have looked in the CNC10 manual and in other material on line to see if I can set soft limits but have not found much - it looks like the motor table (on the Machine Configuration -> Motor Parameters table) has a place to set some sort of limit but it appears to only accept a single digit. Is this right place to set limits or is there some other place where I can set up soft limits on this control or am I misunderstanding how to use this field on the motor table?
Soft limits are on the Jog Parameters menu (F1 from Machine Configuration). They are signed distances from Machine Home.
They are only as good as your ability to set Machine Home in the same place every time you start up the control. In the absence of limit/home switches, it is up to you to jog to the appropriate location before pressing Cycle Start to find or set home.
The numbers on the Motor Parameters menu are PLC input numbers for physical limit/home switches. On a SERVO3IO, these would be integers from 7 to 12, or 0 where no switch is installed.
That helps - I hope to install some sort of limit switches in the future so the homing should get better - this is an Ajax cnc mill, factory installed cnc control. It had homing marks on the x and z axis but the Y has nothing. It homes to the Z pulse from the encoder so it is pretty repeatable. I always try to park the machine when I shut it down so it is usually at the homing point when I fire it up. The mill is a square column gear head machine. I'll keep looking for good ways to add the limit switches. Thanks!
CNC10 (Linux) Soft limits?
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