examples outside of machine limits how to fix?

cant fathom what this is a link to.

You probably have the simulation machine setup with a very short z axis travel, it's possible that no matter what you do the program will exceed the size of the machine. You may have rapid moves or other linear moves outside of the red box, look carefully to make sure all lines, even very faint lines are inside the box. My machine only has about 2 inches a travel, I had to edit most of the sample programs to have very short feed in moves so the part would fit within my machine limits.

cmorley wrote: linuxcnc _always_ has machine limits (or called soft limits) and usually has limit/home switches.

if you don't have switches for home them you must jog to a homing point and tell linuxcnc to home based on that spot.
the spot is set in the INI file. You can't just home anywhere and expect things to work well

How did you get the config in the first place?
Have you tried the sample sim confgs ? They simulate home swicthes.
No sorry I don't think there are homing videos.

Chris M

to setup "my-mill" I followed this,

to get my config.

So linuxcnc engraves after i jog the Z down a bit as the code says.

I cant find anything called "sim"

I tried to load arcspiral.ngc and it wont run saying "linear move on line3 would exceed joint 2's positive limit" this makes no sense to me.

I couldnt get 3dchips.ngc to work but I have just reloaded it and it works..... no idea why the arcspiral.ngc doe not however.

kornphlake79 wrote: You probably have the simulation machine setup with a very short z axis travel, it's possible that no matter what you do the program will exceed the size of the machine. You may have rapid moves or other linear moves outside of the red box, look carefully to make sure all lines, even very faint lines are inside the box. My machine only has about 2 inches a travel, I had to edit most of the sample programs to have very short feed in moves so the part would fit within my machine limits.

Thanks I think this is it. I re-ran the stepconf and I had increased the Z axis from 4 inches to 6 inches, this could explain why 3dchips now runs. I will re-run the setup and make z 10 inches and see if the spiral then works.

though its kind of strange as the Z movement on 3dchips only looks like its about 1.2inches

It isn't the size of the movement that is the problem (with 3-d chips at least) but where the movement is commanded. The first move is to Z+10mm (0.3937) and if you have not touched off Z g54 to something less than that it will give a "Program exccedes machine maximum on axis Z" alarm. The rest of the file is all Z- and the lowest that goes is -30.5mm. So the total travel used is actually about 1.6" and all that needs to be offset so it fits in the machine constraints box (red rectangle). If you change the perspective view of the preview screen to X or Y (front or side view) you can more easily see where in vertical space your tool paths lie.

Todd Zuercher wrote: It isn't the size of the movement that is the problem (with 3-d chips at least) but where the movement is commanded. The first move is to Z+10mm (0.3937) and if you have not touched off Z g54 to something less than that it will give a "Program exccedes machine maximum on axis Z" alarm. The rest of the file is all Z- and the lowest that goes is -30.5mm. So the total travel used is actually about 1.6" and all that needs to be offset so it fits in the machine constraints box (red rectangle). If you change the perspective view of the preview screen to X or Y (front or side view) you can more easily see where in vertical space your tool paths lie.

Yes I have been playing with just this, and so far I have three simulations now working. It doesnt seem to be very well documented / explained.

You are right there isn't a step by step guide that works every time on every machine. Due to the infinite variations in how a machine may be configured, if a tutorial were made with a one size fits all approach it would be even more frustrating than the bare bones documentation that requires some additional resources to be useful.

These are pretty basic general CNC concepts. It is a little like trying to tell someone how to walk or ride a bike. Better to just do it, if you really want to understand it. Sure your going to fall down some, but get back on and keep trying.

If you'd like to setup RDP on your linuxcnc installation someone might be willing to give you a more interactive crash course. You'll probably need a crash course on setting up RDP though, if you aren't familiar with networking and Linux. CNC machining isn't something you learn by reading a blog or watching a YouTube video, in fact trying to learn that way is likely to end up in loss of life or limb or destroying the machine.