Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

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tmadrms
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2019 10:16 pm

Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by tmadrms » Sat Jan 25, 2020 9:23 pm

I have my Z max limit switch setup and I want to home that to be the new zero. When I do this I need to set a negative number for lower soft limit, but I always receive an error when trying to do so. I attempted to leave both set to zero but it appears a soft limit entry must exist and will always be honored (meaning it appears I cannot ignore this value). I noticed you'd mentioned to others to set a negative for the lower soft limit so I assume it should be possible. I've been working around this by setting my Z home to 200 and then using G38.2 Z0 to set my probe, but I would like to avoid this by removing the soft limit all together, or preferably using the negative. I have updated to 4.12 and this is still an issue.

Unrelated, is it possible to introduce a pause into the program? I tried P1000 and a few other options. I've noticed it takes my VFD a bit to get my spindle up to speed and it starts cutting before it's ready. I suspect I could add an M0 and just wait for the speed and click OK, but I'd like to automate it if possible.

Thanks!

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Doug
Posts: 343
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:56 pm

Re: Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by Doug » Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:10 am

I have my Z max limit switch setup and I want to home that to be the new zero. When I do this I need to set a negative number for lower soft limit, but I always receive an error when trying to do so.

I am unable to duplicate this. Does the error occur when you try to set the value, or at some time when you are running a program?


Unrelated, is it possible to introduce a pause into the program? I tried P1000 and a few other options. I've noticed it takes my VFD a bit to get my spindle up to speed and it starts cutting before it's ready. I suspect I could add an M0 and just wait for the speed and click OK, but I'd like to automate it if possible.


I split this out into a separate issue and added it to the Frequently Asked Questions board. Please check out the answer at:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=143

tmadrms
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2019 10:16 pm

Re: Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by tmadrms » Sun Jan 26, 2020 10:42 pm

Very interesting... I made the change from my laptop instead of the controller itself and ran into no error. I'd made the change here (laptop) so I could screen capture, but it worked fine. I will snap a photo with my phone on the actual controller itself. This solved my issue, but it is a strange behavior.

And thank you for the pause answer, I will try it out tomorrow. I really appreciate you guys always getting back to us, very impressed with your level of engagement.

Thanks!

tmadrms
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2019 10:16 pm

Re: Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by tmadrms » Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:44 pm

So at first I couldn't get this to reproduce since I'd updated it via my laptop. Then today I was troubleshooting (my foolishness :P) a Z height issue. I went to adjust the min for Z again (which worked last night from the controller after I adjusted it via laptop) and the error came back. I snapped a photo with my phone (attached). And just as before I was able to adjust it remotely via my laptop with no issue. While this is only an inconvenience for me now that I can work around it, but it may be a bigger issue for those without connectivity. I would also note that I previously tried to work around this by exporting my config, modifying it with the negative and then reset and upload to controller, and this also was met with the same problem.

This happened when adjusting the Z min to -300 (though I've tried all sorts of numbers. It only happens (so far) from controller (with keyboard OR mouse input - tried to rule out an input device issue) and only for negative numbers.
Screen Shot 2020-01-27 at 1.36.22 PM.png
While troubleshooting this I'm reminded how much I would LOVE to have those macro buttons. I cannot count the amount of times I slammed into the probe forgetting to reset the feedrate back to 100.

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Doug
Posts: 343
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:56 pm

Re: Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by Doug » Tue Jan 28, 2020 10:46 am

Sorry,

I still don't quite understand when or how you get the error. What field are you trying to update when you get the error and exactly what value are you trying to put into the field?

mcoleman
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2021 5:09 pm

Re: Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by mcoleman » Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:17 pm

Hey,
I know this is an old post, but I’m experiencing the same issue. What’s happening is when you try to set a negative minimum soft limit on an axis from the controller itself you’ll get the error message about parsing the float. If you do the same thing connected remotely, the issue doesn’t occur. Also - when you get the error connected to the local console your machine gets stuck in jog mode so you can’t home any axis (or do anything to it really) without rebooting.

Hope this helps! I’m on the current firmware so it’s still an issue.
Thanks!
Mark

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Doug
Posts: 343
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:56 pm

Re: Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by Doug » Wed Mar 03, 2021 7:49 pm

Thank you for your posting.

I went and tried this out again from my local head and found that I do not get the error when using the soft keyboard with my ASUS VT168H touch screen monitor.

However, I do get the failure when using a hardware keyboard on the local machine.

I have updated the github issue on this subject to reflect this new information. See https://github.com/buildbotics/bbctrl-f ... issues/249

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Doug
Posts: 343
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:56 pm

Re: Unable to set soft limit to a negative number.

Post by Doug » Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:20 pm

This will be fixed in Version 1.0.

In the mean time, if you are using a hardware keyboard with your local head, you could uninstall the virtual keyboard. You can do this by opening a new tab on your local interface and navigating to https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... ninn?hl=en . Then, follow the instructions to uninstall the soft keyboard.

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