Help understanding what I might be doing wrong.

As Andy has pointed out , theirs no unsupported configuration , Linuxcnc is extremely configurable .
stepconfig is primarly used just to get you started after that it's more handcrafting the Hal and ini files to produce your full requirements
usualy one way to learn is to copy and paste from other configurations , once you have the basics .

the easy way is to post your hal and ini files as an attachment , and no doubt someone will pick up and help you edit the file to suit your machine
theirs no reason to try and fight your way through .

you'll soon be up and running

cncbasher wrote:

if you need home at a minimum point this can be done by changing the net of the limit switches to both-min rather than both-max

You lost me there. How do you change the limit switches to "both-min"? In the axis setup, I have the table travel set for "0.0 to 23.0", home switch location at 0.0 and the home location to 1.0 . When the machine starts the homing process (Alt+M G X) for the X axis for example, you can see the counter on scree start to increase and the gantry is moving away from the minimum limit switch. This is counter to what I would think it would do. Let me explain my line of thinking and perhaps you can tell me where i am going wrong.

Lets assume the following variables for a given axis.
range of travel 0.0 -> 10.0
home switch location 0.0

When the system powered up, it has no idea where the axis is within the range of travel. So I would think that when the system starts to try and find home for that axis, it would see that the home switch is at the very bottom of the range of travel and this command the axes to move closer to 0.0 (In a negative direction in relation to it's current unknown position) until it found home.

Your recommendation of setting the home at the minimum point verse the max point would seem to be the correct answer as currently my system is trying to find the home switch (located at the lowest point in it's range of travel) by moving the axis in a positive direction, but I do not understand how to make that change outside of the axis setup..

So what am I missing?

BigJohnT wrote:

To change the homing direction in the Stepconf Wizard make sure you have "Both Limit + Home" for each axis in the inputs. Change the "Home Search Velocity" sign to reverse the homing direction. For example if it is 0.05 change it to -0.05.

www.linuxcnc.org/docs/html/config/stepco...axis_configuration_a

JT

Cool, I somehow think this is the solution. When I get home, I will give it a try. Thank you!

andypugh wrote:

cdslaughter wrote:

1) Setting up the 6 switches I have at the limit of each axis is proving a challenge. I have each of the axis’s minimum limit switch going to an input ( X to 1, Y to 2, and Z to 3). Those 3 switches are wired for normally closed. The 3 maximum switches are wired in parallel for normally open and connected to input 4. This was originally wired this way so that the 3 minimum limit switches could also function as the home switches. Unfortunately I have discovered that this is an unsupported configuration.

There is no such thing as an "unsupported configuration", but there are some configurations that Stepconf / PncConf don't know how to configure.
If you want to wire that way, then you can, but you will need to set it up in the HAL file.

net all-max-lim parport.0.pin-04-in-not  => axis.0.pos-lim-sw-in axis.1.pos-lim-sw-in axis.2.pos-lim-sw-in

This assumes a parallel port config and a signal that goes high when the switches operate.

Is this a problem? I tried setting the minimum limit switches to act as home and min limit, but every time I homed an axis, it failed and reported a “Joint” error.

You need to set the HOME_IGORE_LIMIT option in the INI file.

2) I have tried configuring my Z axis and am having all kinds of issues. The only difference between its configuration and the X ,Y axis config, is that is uses negative values instead of positive in the home location and table travel fields.

Don't fight it. Set top of travel as zero, bottom of travel as a negative number. You don't even really see the machine coordinate system when operating the system.

Thank you, Wish I had read this before I rewired. But at least I now know there are other options to the wizard.

Carl

Hello all

I just stopped by to apologize for the very late follow up to this topic. In the end, it was just a simple change to the homing speed and setting to a negative value. once I did that, it all worked out perfectly.
I actually tested this on July 4th and was ecstatic with my new found success. Unfortunately that was short lived as I received news that my father had passed away that very day. Once the news cam in, I dropped everything and headed home to be with family and am only now able to get back to normal life.

So thank you to all whom helped me with this problem. I am sure it won't be the last time I ask for help.

Thank you

Carl

P.S. below is a snapshot of my first test run. The motors are getting hot so I am going to replace them. They were salvaged from an old printer and had an odd wiring setup anyhow.

BigJohnT wrote:

To change the homing direction in the Stepconf Wizard make sure you have "Both Limit + Home" for each axis in the inputs. Change the "Home Search Velocity" sign to reverse the homing direction. For example if it is 0.05 change it to -0.05.

www.linuxcnc.org/docs/html/config/stepco...axis_configuration_a

JT

This was the solution .

Carl