Need help setting my soft-limits
Posted: Mon May 16, 2022 3:41 pm
Hey all - just finished my wiring and am doing the setup on a 3-axis mini-mill. I need some help setting my soft-limits correctly.
I have proxy switches on what would be the X-max, Y-max, and Z-max ends of the feeds - and have set each of the motors to switch-max for homing.
My settings are:
Motor 0 (X) - min-soft limit: 0, max-soft-limit: 250, latch-backoff: 5
Motor 1 (Y) - min-soft limit: 0, max-soft-limit: 150, latch-backoff: 5
Motor 2 (Z) - min-soft limit: 75**, max-soft-limit: 250, latch-backoff: 5
The homing procedure there works fine, and backs off as it's supposed to 5mm and sets my position to 250/150/250 (so zero is over at the min-end of the feeds, which makes sense). So the machine should understand the extent of it's working envelope.
(**on my Z, I don't want the spindle to get less than 75mm above my table given the stick-out of the collet, tool, fixtures, etc)
Now I want to zero on my workpiece. So I jog the table, touch off the top-center of my workpiece, and zero it there...because that's how I roll.
With my WCS also set at top-center of the stock, this means that all my cuts are -Z, and EITHER +/- X, or +/-Y from *zero*. When I attempt to run my program, however, it dies saying I can't move the tool (z) below 0. Which I guess makes sense given my settings. I'm going to guess, too, it would complain about -X and -Y movements too in that case.
So I'm confused as to expressing the limits of machine travel on the feeds, versus establishing zero on the workpiece for purposes of running my gcode...are soft-limits based on Zero? Or are soft-limits based on home? It seems like they're based off zero, which wouldn't make sense.
What am I missing? (ans: likely, all of it)
Thx for listening
I have proxy switches on what would be the X-max, Y-max, and Z-max ends of the feeds - and have set each of the motors to switch-max for homing.
My settings are:
Motor 0 (X) - min-soft limit: 0, max-soft-limit: 250, latch-backoff: 5
Motor 1 (Y) - min-soft limit: 0, max-soft-limit: 150, latch-backoff: 5
Motor 2 (Z) - min-soft limit: 75**, max-soft-limit: 250, latch-backoff: 5
The homing procedure there works fine, and backs off as it's supposed to 5mm and sets my position to 250/150/250 (so zero is over at the min-end of the feeds, which makes sense). So the machine should understand the extent of it's working envelope.
(**on my Z, I don't want the spindle to get less than 75mm above my table given the stick-out of the collet, tool, fixtures, etc)
Now I want to zero on my workpiece. So I jog the table, touch off the top-center of my workpiece, and zero it there...because that's how I roll.
With my WCS also set at top-center of the stock, this means that all my cuts are -Z, and EITHER +/- X, or +/-Y from *zero*. When I attempt to run my program, however, it dies saying I can't move the tool (z) below 0. Which I guess makes sense given my settings. I'm going to guess, too, it would complain about -X and -Y movements too in that case.
So I'm confused as to expressing the limits of machine travel on the feeds, versus establishing zero on the workpiece for purposes of running my gcode...are soft-limits based on Zero? Or are soft-limits based on home? It seems like they're based off zero, which wouldn't make sense.
What am I missing? (ans: likely, all of it)
Thx for listening