[Snipes44]

I have done a bit of search here, Google and the Yahoo group and I seem to be missing some thing.

Here are my system specs,

I have separate limit/home switches at both ends of travel all all 3 axis. These are wired in the OPTI-IN of a Kanalog board.

This is on a mill. My drives are controlled by step/dir signals and the loop is closed at the drives (not sure this really matters).

I'm using Mach3 for my control software. As of right now I can jog and run g-code with no problems.

I'm having trouble seeing how to get Mach3/kflop to home my machine.

Lets start with getting Mach3 to pass the homing call to Kflop. In my searching I found reference to this page Mach3 Plugin Enoder Setup which states that I need to modify the ref x/y/z buttons in Mach3. Only differences that I see between my button configs and the pics in the above link is the OEM code#. Mine are set on 22, 23, 24. The above link has them set for 1022, 1023, 1024, I assume this is what I need to change. It's not clear on that page what actually needs to be changed.

I didn't find any information on what may need to be done with the 'Ref all' button in Mach. My best guess is I leave this one alone since it looks like it just "pushes" the ref x/y/z buttons for me.


Now on to the c program.

I have been studying SimpleHome3Axis.c and HomeMach3.c, it has been a while since I have done any type of programming but its starting to come back. Below is how I think my c program should look.

Note I'm only working on the the z-axis. Figure I get that one working and the others are going to be really easy to set up.

Couple of questions on some of the code.

Jog(2,100); // So this reads jog axis number 2 (Z-axis) at 100 counts/second? If this jogs the wrong way do I just change the 100 to a negative number?

while (!ReadBit(10)) // I think the '10' in this statements needs to be changed to the input number that I have the home switch connected too.

Move(2,-1000.0); // Is the -1000.0 the number of encoder counts the motor is suppose to move? I would like 0.1" back off from the home switch, I have 10,000 counts/inch so it looks like the -1000.0 would be the correct number.


Thanks
-Wes

#include "KMotionDef.h"

//Plugin calls for Mach3 Home (actually Purge) Commands

main()
{
	int flags = persist.UserData[5];  // Mach3 flags bit0=X, bit1=Y, Bit2=Z, etc...

	printf("Mach3 Home Call, flags = %d\n",flags); 
	
	if (flags==1)
	{
		// do x homing here

	}

	if (flags==2)
	{
		// do y homing here
	}

	if (flags==4)
	{
		// Z-axis Homing

	int SaveZLimits;  	//place to save limit switch settings
	
	DisableAxis(2);  	// Disable Z axis
	
		
		// I don't have access to my axis parameters right now.
		// My machine is at my dads house, I know what needs to go here.

			// Set the axis parameters here
			// after everything is configured in the KMotion Screens
			// use copy C Code to clipboard on the configuration screen
			// then paste here.  Repeat for each axis



						 
	SaveZLimits = ch2->LimitSwitchOptions;	// save how the limit is set
	
	ch2->LimitSwitchOptions = 0;		// disable the limit
			
	EnableAxis(2);				// enable Z axes and begin servoing where we are 

 
	// jog z-axis until it sees the limit

    Jog(2,100);					// jog slowly positive
    while (!ReadBit(10)) ; 		 	// loop until IO bit goes high
    Jog(2,0);					// stop
    while (!CheckDone(2)) ; 			// loop until motion completes 
    DisableAxis(2);				// disable the axis
    Zero(2);					// Zero the position 
    EnableAxis(2);				// re-enable the ServoTick
    Move(2,-1000.0);			// move some amount inside the limits
    while (!CheckDone(2)) ; 			// loop until motion completes 
    ch2->LimitSwitchOptions = SaveZLimits;  // restore limit settings

	}

	
	printf("Done\n"); 
}

[michaelthomas]

It's been a little while since I went through this same stuff.....so I'm slightly fuzzy on the Mach part, but I believe you are on the right track.

It depends what screen set you are using.

I was using a lathe screen and had to change a bunch of things....just can't remember. Sorry.....it was for someone else's machine, or I would look to refresh my memory for you.

I'm sure Tom will see this and answer.

The answer to your C questions are yes , correct ( bit number of switch you are monitoring), and yes.

Mike

[TomKerekes]

Hi Wes,

Did you get this working?

For your situation (no encoders) you shouldn't need to change the Mach3 Screen Buttons. In Mach3 terminology "Homing" is referred to as "Ref". Pushing a "Ref" button or the "Ref ALL Home" button will send messages to our Plugin which will then run the HomeMach3.c program (or whatever you have specified in our plugin configuration) with the flag variable passed to inform the program which axis should be homed.

Your other questions are all correct.

Regards

[Snipes44]

Tom,

For the most part it is working. Only problem that I have run into is some times Mach zeros the axis DRO and turns the red referenced light the green with out moving the axis. Only way I get it to work when this happens is a complete reboot of my PC. That doesn't work all the time, I have had to do a couple reboots.

When it is working I can home it all day long with no problems.

Thanks
-Wes

[TomKerekes]

Hi Wes,

Not sure what would cause that. The only thing I can think of is the Home program is "stuck" and won't finish for some reason. For example the axis doesn't move (ie axis or amplifier disabled?) In this case the home program will wait forever looking to detect the switch input. You could check if this is the case by running KMotion.exe and looking on the C Program screen to see if the Thread you assigned to Home is still running (green bar over Thread indicates a program running). If so, look to see why the axis is not moving (disabled?). Also check if halting the thread allows recovery. Once we figure out what is going on we can work on a solution.

Regards
TK

[Snipes44]

Tom,

You called that one. When I was testing out the homing program I had an incorrect limit switch input pin number in the code. What would happen is it was looking to the neg switch when I was traveling in a positive direction. I would hit the hard stop which would cause my drive to fault. After resetting the drive the kflop light was green for thread 3. The quick fix is to just activate the limit switch so that the home program will complete.

That is all working now.

Thanks
-Wes