Homing / limits - the manual is misleading, possibly wrong

Hi rodw,

I saw in one of the threads that you had written the .ini AND the .hal files for your machine from scratch just using the manuals.

Based on that I suspect you're smarter than the average bear ...

I can tell you for myself that the way these types of technologies are typically documented (Linux, UNIX, programming languages) does not compute with the signals and pathways in my brain. Wish that wasn't the case.

I've never been able to put my finger on why that is but I suspect that I have difficulty keeping all the little pieces of info in my head long enough to fit them all together.

What works for people like me is to have ALL the information needed to perform a specific task together and in a linear sequence. If I have to read some of the info in one area and then jump to another section to learn or remember some other related detail I just end up lost and going in circles.

With everyone's help I finally understand how to set up homing and software limits in the .ini file and have updated the graphic I attached the other day in a way that works for me to help me remember how to do this. I'll send it later when I'm on my other computer where I did the work to see what you guys think.

Thanks again all.

Jay

Here's the updated graphic I put together for all the MS Windows brained people out there :blink



Thanks again everyone.

Having fun now !!!

Not quite right (and some of these I'm nit picking)

A,B,C,D and H are really points not distances. They are all referenced from the origin. Distance is the measurement between these points and the origin. (this is the nit picking part)

H (final home position) is referenced from the origin not from home_offset

You vertical text in blue says that B is home-offset = -.07 it's not it's the origin which is always 0
Home_offset is the distance between the home switch trip point and the origin. (between C and B )

Chris

jay.perez1 wrote: Hi rodw,

I saw in one of the threads that you had written the .ini AND the .hal files for your machine from scratch just using the manuals.

Based on that I suspect you're smarter than the average bear ...
Jay

Only because I had to becasue the Mesa 7i76e was not supported by pncconf at the time so I copied someone else's config. Bear in mind back then getting a PREEMPT_RT kernel to use the fairly new Mesa ethernet cards was not trivial and the guys here talked me through how to patch and compile the Linux kernel on Linux Mint. From that point, I decided it would be a walk in the park to compile Linuxcnc from source. I won't say it was easy but I got it done! Then just after that inspired my my non-trivial journey, one of the guys did a tutorial on doing what I did with Mint, then just after that the Stretch ISO was released. So homing aside, its a lot easier today.

I did test 7i76e support by pncconf for cmorley at one stage before he released it...

BUt the key is that you knew something about CNC and I knew nothing so my journey to enlightenment was massive! BUt it can be done!

But users will overcome this issue very soon and as so many take there own intent to there system
the Wizards are only there to get a basic setup as i understand it
MOST coming from MACH or othere ESTLCAM ARDUINO CNC systems are on Graphic setups that do also only Basics
if it is not there it cand be done
LINUXCNC is different as i understand it there is WAY more then Basic
the Plasmac gave a big boost in the last Month
Not every imagin Button needs to be in wizard
and as of the starting post MISSLEADING is a understanding of Positiv negativ/ US,Europa,Asia MM/Inch

users as i see her in forum are offen misled by them self (ME2) as they search all over and dont try and error on basics
at some point you are so confused as it is a 50,50 change to get it right
THERFOR this Forum is up and answers correct waiting to be confirmed is better then not to grill the Drives

In my view, the only source of the truth are the official documents.
But you have to be sure to read the docs for your version.
Then you have to remember the docs are written for System integrators.
You need to do your homework and read the docs before you start building your machine so you have system integrator skills.
This is not commercial software and there is no dedicated team working to simplify getting it going.
Right now its more confusing than it should be becasue V2.8 really should be the release version so I hope that happens soon.
There are massive differences between V2.7 and 2.8. And 2.7 is basically obsolete.

The trouble with forums is what was true once may not be true today.
But the help and assistance given so willingly by other members sets this community apart.

Plasmac probably sets the standard today for Linuxcnc configs becasue of the included configuration tools that does not exist for any other class of machine that Linuxcnc supports. It is amazing how many questins here are about plasma machines which is really exciting because its a whole new class of machine for Linuxcnc.