Homing Directions

[Dave_C]

All,

I see all sorts of "opinions" regarding homing a mill. Some say the table should be all the way to the operators left and as close to the operator as possible. Others say just the opposite. There may be advantages to each method depending on the type of machine.

Given I am building a knee type mill, I plan on homing the mill with the table full left and fully forward making the cutter at the back right corner of the table and to me that means the X and Y travels are at full + direction.

This is where my question comes in: I'm thinking through the "soft limits" and if I use the above setup it looks like all my travels would be entered as negative values as all travel for X and Y need to be in the negative coordinate direction as viewed from the cutting tool.

Does that make sense and if so as I set up my homing direction in the Acorn Wizard, what do I tell it? Home in the minus direction or positive direction?

The cutter is going toward the positive direction but the table is going the other way.

Clear as mud, right?

Dave C.

[diycncscott]

Motion is always defined as the tool relative to the part. It doesn't matter if the mill is a moving table design or moving tool. As for homing a knee or bed type mill, Z is homed first in the positive direction. I greatly recommend homing the Y next in the positive direction. If you a vise or work piece on the table, homing y positive moves everything away from the column preventing a collision that may have if X. Had been the second axis to be homed. The lastAxis to be homed would be X. I can't think of any advantage in either direction. It would just depend on what you had next to the machine.

[Dave_C]

Excellent!

That makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for the quick response.

Having done Mach 3 setups, I'm finding the Centroid Acorn to be much more logical and easier to set up.

Dave C.