Plasma Cutter - homing Z axis

Hi everyone, 

I’m still very new to the CNC world and am trying to set up a plasma cutting table I bought off someone. I have been trying to home my Z axis, the X and Y are set however I’m having trouble with figuring out the Z. I’m unable to run a program, as when I hit play it comes up with the error ‘can’t run a program when not homed’. 

When I hit ‘home axis’ for Z it automatically goes down and does not stop. I’ve manually lowered the Z axis to touch the material on the table and attempted to ‘touch off’, by entering 0. When I do this, the message ‘can’t issue MDI command when not homes’ pops up.

Any advice on how to home the Z? thanks in advance 

It is usual to home the Z axis in the up direction so as to help prevent any torch crash during homing.

Are you using home switches or are you doing immediate homing?

If you can jog your Z axis is it moving in the correct direction?

It may be helpful if you post your .ini and .hal files.

Thanks for your reply.
It is immediate homing, there are no switches.
The Z axis is able to move both up and down.
I will attach the .ini and .hal files in this reply.

I found a document that explains homing.
forum.linuxcnc.org/38-general-linuxcnc-q...-z-axis/reply/286529  
Would I need to input the entries at the bottom of the page under 'immediate homing'? 

   

 

That looks like an old LinuxCNC version, 2.7 or earlier. It still should work though. The way I see it, you should have the X axis all the way to the left then home it, the Y axis all the way to the front then home it, the Z axis all the way to the top then home it. All the axes should then be homed without any motion. You can then touch off the required axes and run a job. 
What controls do you have on the PyVCP panel?