Sorry if this has been discussed. I did search in the forum and didn’t see it hit with any results.
I am a mentor to a High School Robotics team and we recently got an Avid Benchtop Pro. It has the Automatic tool height setter which sits in the front left corner of the machine (where I would call zero/zero).
When trying to zero the machine using CNC12, it does the Z and X just fine (sees the prox sensors), but when homing Y is where I have a problem. It heads forward to square the gantry, it sees the one prox sensor (right side) but where I would expect to have another prox sensor on the left side, there is not one and it just keeps driving forward with the left side of the machine, I assume trying to find the prox sensor.
From watching all of the videos online (most/all machines) have a prox in that front left point. I have 2 prox sensors in the rear of the machine.
From the the videos I have watched it isn’t set up the same. Its like the squaring prox sensors are in the rear of the machine, and the tool height sensor is the lone sensor in the front left corner, where the machine doing its zeroing sequence and wants to see a prox to square the gantry.
Hopefully what I have described makes sense, if not its on the assembly instructions under motors and sensors. (Front left prox not there, 2 proxes in the rear of the machine)
I am also hoping someone can just tell me it a quick setting in CNC12 that I just didn’t see.
sorry again if its something that has been discussed or a noob thing.
Tim—I went through this recently. I own a Benchtop Pro that is a few years old, and I upgraded to the EX control system, keeping my existing NEMA23 motors and the pencil-shaped sensors. When it comes to the sensors, you need to use the OLD assembly instructions, which have two sensors in the front, and only one in the back left. The current instructions tell you to put two sensors in the back, but you should take the one that is in the back right and move it to the front left. Then the machine will home correctly. It took a call to Avid for me to sort this out. I think the issue is that, in the grand scheme of things, we are early adopters of the EX system, and some of the support paperwork hasn’t been fully worked out.
First, let me say that I think the documentation for assembly and are good and I think the students put it together correctly.
We purchased the machine in October 2024, and had it delivered in early December. It appears that this machine is the newest revision with the tool height setter, so we did not have an upgrade. I did see an upgrade documents that talks about upgrading from steppers to servos that also had a reference to the tool height setter and had you move the prox sensors, but we didn’t get servos or upgrade anything. This is original equipment, put together for the first time with the assembly instructions on the website, that appear to be correct.
The prox sensors all appear to be in the correct areas (i.e. Y1- in back left, Y2- in back right, Y2+ in front left). Everything I see when homing it wants to run to the Y- direction to square the gantry and home the unit. With the updated sensor positions, It seems to me that it would want to square the gantry in the rear of the machine where there are 2 sensors (Y1- & Y2-) now. Let me say that I think it would work correctly if we had the previous version of the machine without the tool height setter as the Y1- and Y2- sensors would be at the front and the gantry would go Y- where the sensors are located.
With the new machine, when we are telling it to square the gantry with a home command, it tells the gantry to go Y- where there are not 2 sensors.
Maybe there is additional documentation that you can point me towards that has more detail, but the physical equipment seems correct. Maybe I’m also not getting it because I’m new to this.
@doncaparker, thank you for the reply, and that is almost where I am at with the unit. The only thing that might be different is that where I have the “No Sensor” in the drawing I made, I have the new tool height sensor which is a great new device that comes with the Benchtop pro, and I am not sure if it will cause issues with that. Not sure why it would, but would like Avid to confirm.
It’s fine and appropriate to wait for the folks at Avid to confirm, but I’m just passing along what I was told when I called Avid tech support with the exact same issue. The current assembly documentation, which says to install one of the sensors in the back right, is not correct for the machines you and I have. For our machines, we need to have two sensors in the front. You take the one that the instructions tell you to put in the back right, and you move it to the front left. It won’t interfere with the tool height sensor plate. I recommend not putting excessive faith in the documentation. It can be wrong, and in this instance, it is, in fact, wrong. It will eventually be corrected. Good luck with getting it sorted out. You might want to call Avid. They were great at helping me work this out on the phone.
On EX the there are supposed to be two sensors in the rear, and one in the front on the Y axis.
The machine should home to the back of the machine, not the front.
You want to make sure you have Benchtop Pro selected in the wizard, if you have PRO selected it will home to the front. Selecting Benchtop Pro will tell the homing program to home to the rear of the machine.
Eric–I hesitate to be the guy who argues with the expert, but I am 100% sure that what you just said is not correct for my Benchtop Pro. My Benchtop Pro is a 2436, and I upgraded it to the EX controller as soon as that was available, but kept my stepper motors. My Acorn profile is the Benchtop Pro profile. It homes to the front left. That’s why I had to call Avid tech support, because I followed the current build instructions for a Benchtop Pro with the EX controller and moved the left front sensor to the back right (the prior Mach4 setup had two front sensors). But when I did that, the machine did not home to the back; it still homed to the front left, and without a sensor at the front left, it crashed (I caught it before it caused any mayhem). So, I called Avid, and was told that I needed to move that back right sensor back up to the front left. I did that, and now it homes just fine. But the important point is that with the EX controller, and a Benchtop Pro profile, the machine wants to home to the front left, not to the back. Again, my apologies for arguing with you about this, but I think this needs to be ironed out within Avid so those of us with Benchtop Pro machines can make sure we are doing things right. And to make sure I am right about this, and not remembering incorrectly, I just now fired up the machine and verified that it has the Benchtop Pro profile, and that it is homing to the front left.
Thanks, Eric. Yes, Tim and I both have steppers, not servos. I know you guys have a billion things going on, but when you have a chance, drafting an addendum to the assembly and setup instructions that deals with an EX system with steppers would be helpful. Without that, folks like Tim and me wind up going in the wrong direction.
Ok Tim and @doncaparker I did some digging and this is in fact a software issue.
All Benchtop Pro machines are supposed to home to the back per the assembly instructions.
The current version of the software you have is set to home improperly. I can get you a software update that will solve this, but it will require putting those sensors in the proper place per the instructions.
I’ll message you both directly to get you setup with this.
To get the question out there for everyone to learn, what is the advantage of going to the back of the machine to home vs. the front of the machine to home?
That’s no advantage to either scenario. On Servo we need to home to the rear of the machine to use hard stop homing. Switching stepper to home that way just makes assembly the same no matter what motor you have.
So, Eric was able to get me sorted out. Thanks, Eric! If anyone else has issues with this, make sure you run a fresh machine profile. In any event, my machine now successfully homes to the back left. Onto other things.
