I need help relocating "Home" position Avid Pro 60120 ***SOLVED see responses below

1

Avid Pro 60120
When Standing at Foot of table
Existing “Home” position is Bottom Left
Desired “Home” position can be either Top Left or Top Right

I have sucessfully changed the Mach4 “Machine Setup”/“Homing Setting” to send the X and Y Axes to either of the desired new “Home” position, including moving the Y sensor when needed and changing Neg to Pos where needed. In both cases the system appears to sucessfully move to the desired position, stops properly, and “Soft Limits” turn “On”, BUT that is when the problem(s) begin.

Once the system has Homed what happens is either the X or Y movement causes this issue:

When homing to Top Left and then trying to Jog, moving the Y will work as expected but when trying to jog the X it will try to move a hair, stop and cause Mach4 to “disable”. When I press “Enable” the X will now Jog as desired.

When homing to Top Right and then trying to Jog, moving the X will work as expected but when trying to jog the Y it will try to move a hair, stop and cause Mach4 to “disable”. When I press “Enable” the Y will now Jog as desired.

In both cases, if I try to “Go to work X, Y, Zero” right after it Homes nothing happens at all. I must Jog, reEnable and then I can “Go to work X, Y, Zero”

And then the Bigger issue happens (maybe it is normal after system is “Disabled” and then “Enabled”)

What will then happen is although I have already “Homed” the system if I try to run a GCode it alerts me that the system “Must be Homed” prior to running a job.

What am I missing? Are there other settings I must change , such as “Offsets” possibly?

Is there any additional Info needed from my end?

All/Any help and suggestions are greatly appreciated…

BTW, I have sucessfully moved the Home position back to Bottom Left, and all works well, until I am able to make the desired change.

2

You also moved the left side Y proximity sensor to the “top” then as well? You need two of them on the Y end that you want to home at to square up the gantry.

The issues you mention make me thing the soft limits haven’t been properly reversed. Are you getting any soft limit errors down in the History window?

3

Firstly, thank you for taking the time try to help, I very much appreciate this.

Yes, I moved the left side senor to the top, and right side already has a sensor at both top and bottom. When I moved the left side sensor I believe I have it even with the right side. This wasn’t based on any knowhow, but seemed the common sense thing to do.

History window shows this
E-Stop cleared!
Home switch Z Home tripped!
Home switch Z Home tripped!
Limit switch Z ++ tripped!
Limit switch Y – tripped!
-----ESS: Limit Switch triggered on

BUT I had closed Mach4 earlier and I am wondering if I have to put it through the new Homing motions to have it register in the History window. I will have to move the sensor back to the top position and then chck again

I did nothing to the soft limits so I do not know if you mean I should be reversing them, or should they have reversed on their own? I did a system reboot (both CNC andd Mach4) just to see if that was needed for changes to happen, but no luck.

Am I supposed to change soft limit setting also?

Homing Setting “offsets” were left at “0”, should they be changed?

4

You are on to something for sure. I moved the sensor back and cleared the history. Small update is that after it homes Y cannot Jog towards bottom ( X will Jog to right) I must Jog Y to top, where it then disables.

Here are the new History report:

ESS: Mach4 Enabled
ESS: Homing started for Axis 2
Home switch Z Home tripped!
Limit switch Z ++ tripped!
ESS: Switching to axis distance back off state.
ESS: Homing of axis completed successfully
ESS: Homing started for Axis 0
ESS: Homing started for Axis 1
ESS: Homing started for Axis 1
Limit switch Y ++ tripped!
Home switch Y Home tripped!
Home switch X Home tripped!
Limit switch X – tripped!
ESS: Switching to axis distance back off state.
ESS: Homing of axis completed successfully
Limit switch Y ++ tripped!
Home switch Y Home tripped!
-----ESS: Limit Switch triggered on Motor Limit 1++ Motor Limit 3++

In the Avid Mach4 Config “Use custom home settings” is checked, but “use custom soft limits” is not.

I checked it and now I see “Home settings and Soft limits” in “Machine Settings”, which I had not prior.

I am reading through the Avid Mach4 Users Guide but I have little understannding as of yet.

current settings are:

x,y,z home offset are “0” X = Neg Y = Pos Z = Pos
soft limits enabled on all
Soft Limit Max are:
X = 61.0
Y= 124.0
Z = 0.0

Side Note: always, when reaching the limits, axes will “Hit” the stop… It stops, but it clearly “Hits” it with a little thud. I was watching a Youtube looking how to have it slow down prior to reaching the end, which I will work on. This is from always, and has nothing to do with me trying to change the Home position.

5

If your Y limit is in the back, shouldn’t your Y soft limits be -124…0 and not 0…124 ?

6

Not sure, but will give it a try

Thank you for the suggestion, and I will respond shortly with results

What Setting is the “0” in your examples?

If I change the soft limit max to -124 it removes the issue where it needs to disable and enable again but my Y axes has reversed when Jogging (forward is back, etc), and I cannot "go to work X Y zero.

OKAY! think we may have it. I saw the Z axes had a - in the Soft Limit Min and thought maybe that is what you mean

I made the Y Soft Limit Max 0, and Min -124 and I THINK all is well. I can home, I can go to work X Y, now I have to load a GCode and see if it will allow me to run it. But It is closer to correct, I hope.

YES, I think I am good now. I can Home, I can go to work X Y right after homing, and I can run a GCode.

With all that being said, are there any other settings that need changing when changing the “Home” position?

7

If it homes in the corner you want, and all axis jog in the right direction, and your DRO’s show the right numbers wrt where you are at, and you end up in the right corner with Go To XY home, then I think you have all your settings right…now don’t forget to change your 0, 0 reference in your design when you make your first new design in Vcarve or F360 or whatever :slight_smile:

8

Yes!.. I have been wondering about that. Will this change impact my saved GCodes, and/or new ones? Do I have to make a change to my VCarve Pro 11.5 projects, both old and new?

“don’t forget to change your 0, 0 reference in your design when you make your first new design”

Could you elaborate? Again, I am new to all this. I tend to use “center” as the point in VCarve, but often enough use “Bottom Left”. Is that what you are referring to?

9

Well, I was half joking, but it was a bad joke :slight_smile:

As long as the whole Gcode fits within the area of you soft limits it will run. What I don’t know is which direction it is going to run. You put 0,0 in the top left corner with respect to the “normal” front of the machine right? But I don’t think you changed your axis directions, so your Y now goes from 0 (in the back) to -120" (in the front) right? If that is true, I think everthing is still going to cut in the same orientation as before, so you really shouldn’t have to set your corner (or center) any differently on the projects. Let me know if I’m wrong on that, I’m curious.

10

LOL… I am so sorry. I assure you that it is only by my own ignorance that I did not realize it. Hopefully I will learn enough to understand these things somewhat soon. I will do some testing to see if any changes need be made in the design part, and I truly was thinking along those lines, that designs past and new, may need adjustments. I’m busy with my real job the next few days but I promise I will come back here to let the forum know.

Thank you again, for the help.

11

jjneeb, djdelorie,

I had a few busy days at my real job but wanted to make sure I thanked you both for your help here. I do hope that someday I will be able to “pay it forward”, and if I reach a point of knowledge which would allow this I will surely take the time to do so.

I am hoping to be putting the new home position through some tests this weekend, with both old and new GCodes, and I will post results here regarding any changes I may have to make to my old/new VCarve Pro 11.5 projects.

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