an explanation of limits & homing -hope its clear

This is taken from PNCconf help file.
I'm pretty sure its right
It may be helpful to others who don't use
PNCconf as the manual is a little terse.
Please let me know if it's useful, missing
anything or you find it wrong.

LIMITS and HOMING:

It very important to start with the axis moving
in the right direction or else getting homing
right is very difficult.

Remember positive and negative directions
refer to the TOOL not the table as per the
Machinists handbook.
on a typical knee or bed mill:
when the TABLE moves out that is the positive Y direction
when the TABLE moves left that is the positive X direction
when the TABLE moves down that is the positive Z direction
when the HEAD moves up that is the positive Z direction
on a typical lathe:
when the TOOL moves right, away from the chuck
that is the positive Z direction
when the TOOL moves toward the operator
that is the positive X direction. Some lathes have X
opposite (eg tool on back side), that will work fine but
AXIS graphical display can not be made to reflect this.

When using homing and / or limit switches
EMC2 expects the HAL signals to be true when
the switch is being pressed / tripped.
If the signal is wrong for a limit switch then
EMC2 will think the machine is on end of limit
all the time. If the home switch search logic is wrong
EMC2 will seem to home in the wrong direction.
What it actually is doing is trying to BACK off
the home switch.

-Decide on limit switch location.
Limit switches are the back up for software limits in case
something electrical goes wrong eg. servo runaway.
Limit switches should be placed so that the machine does not
hit the physical end of the axis movement. Remember the axis
will coast past the contact point if moving fast. Limit switches
should be 'active low' on the machine. eg. power runs through
the switches all the time - a loss of power (open switch) trips.
While one could wire them the other way, this is fail safe.
This may need to be inverted so that the HAL signal in EMC
in 'active high' - a TRUE means the switch was tripped. When
starting EMC if you get an on-limit warning, and axis is NOT
tripping the switch, inverting the signal is probably the
solution. (use HALMETER to check the corresponding HAL signal
eg. axis.0.pos-lim-sw-in X axis positive limit switch)

-Decide on the home switch location.
If you are using limit switches You may as well use one as a
home switch. A separate home switch is useful if you have a long
axis that in use is usually a long way from the limit switches or
moving the axis to the ends presents problems of interference
with material.
eg a long shaft in a lathe makes it hard to home to limits with out
the tool hitting the shaft, so a separate home switch closer to the
middle may be better.
If you have an encoder with index then the home switch acts as a
course home and the index will be the actual home location.

-Decide on the MACHINE ORIGIN position.
MACHINE ORIGIN is what EMC uses to reference all user coordinate
systems from.
I can think of little reason it would need to be in any particular
spot. There are only a few Gcodes that can access the
MACHINE COORDINATE system.( G53, G30 and G28 )
If using tool-change-at-G30 option having the Origin at the tool
change position may be convenient. By convention, it may be easiest
to have the ORIGIN at the home switch.

-Decide on the (final) HOME POSITION.
this just places the carriage at a consistent and convenient position
after EMC figures out where the ORIGIN is.

-Measure / calculate the positive / negative axis travel distances.
Move the axis to the origin. Mark a reference on the movable
slide and the non-moveable support (so they are in line) move
the machine to the end of limits. Measure between the marks that is one
of the travel distances. Move the table to the other end of travel.
Measure the marks again. That is the other travel distance. If the ORIGIN
is at one of the limits then that travel distance will be zero.

(machine) ORIGIN:
The Origin is the MACHINE zero point. (not
the zero point you set your cutter / material at).
EMC2 uses this point to reference everything else
from. It should be inside the software limits.
EMC uses the home switch location to calculate
the origin position (when using home switches
or must be manually set if not using home switches.

Travel distance:
This is the maximum distance the axis can
travel in each direction. This may
or may not be able to be measured directly
from origin to limit switch. The positive and
negative travel distances should add up to the
total travel distance.

POSITIVE TRAVEL DISTANCE:
This is the distance the Axis travels from
the Origin to the positive travel distance or
the total travel minus the negative travel
distance. You would set this to zero if the
origin is positioned at the positive limit.
The will always be zero or a positive number.

NEGATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCE:
This is the distance the Axis travels from
the Origin to the negative travel distance.
or the total travel minus the positive travel
distance. You would set this to zero if the
origin is positioned at the negative limit.
This will always be zero or a negative number.
If you forget to make this negative PNCconf
will do it internally.

(Final) HOME POSITION:
This is the position the home sequence will
finish at. It is referenced from the Origin
so can be negative or positive depending on
what side of the Origin it is located.
When at the (final) home position if
you must move in the Positive direction to
get to the Origin, then the number will be
negative.

HOME SWITCH LOCATION:
This is the distance from the home switch to
the Origin. It could be negative or positive
depending on what side of the Origin it is
located. When at the home switch location if
you must move in the Positive direction to
get to the Origin, then the number will be
negative. If you set this to zero then the
Origin will be at the location of the limit
switch (plus distance to find index if used)

Home Search Velocity:
Course home search velocity in units per second.

Home Search Direction:
Sets the home switch search direction
either negative (ie. towards negative limit switch)
or positive (ie. towards positive limit switch)

Home Latch Velocity:
Fine Home search velocity in units per second

Home Final Velocity:
Velocity used from latch position to (final) home position
in units per second. Set to 0 for max rapid speed

Home latch Direction:
Allows setting of the latch direction to the same
or opposite of the search direction.

Use Encoder Index For Home:
EMC2 will search for an encoder index pulse while in
the latch stage of homing.

Thanks for proof reading it for me John.
Yes I'm not sure the best place to put it in manual.
But in the configuration section with maybe a reference to it in the integrators section that explains homing
'Homing configuration' would work.
I'm not sure what manual most first time users read but the configuration manual that includes stepconf does seem logical.
I would add your lathe picture with the sample limit / home switch shown too.

Pncconf allows steppers with encoders so I think one can have EMC home to index with steppers - though i have never tried it.

Chris M