Multiple profiles or homing question

[guerra_cues]

You have to home the machine at every start up BEFORE you start anything. Either "simple home" or "home to switches", there's no way around this. You can shut down the machine at any time without parking or moving or rehoming the gantry. Just shut down at anytime anywhere. Next time you power it up you'll have to home that machine again.

It sounds like you don't have your homing setup properly or you don't fully understand how it works. I'm confused by your comment "One thing I noticed is that I have to move the CNC like 0.010 or 0.100” and then set home when I turn everything on, if I hit cycle start the CNC does not home it errors out." What do you mean it errors out? Do you have a screen shot?

A standard start up procedure would be-

- turn on the pc so it starts to boot up
- turn on the machine control aka your Acorn (doesn't matter the order, Acorn then pc if you like)
- after the pc boots and you have a heartbeat on the Acorn launch CNC12
- software opens and the message window reads "9033 Reset Initiated, press reset to clear"
- press the reset button and the message window now reads "4032 reset cleared"
- at this time you must press cycle start to home the machine, it'll either simple home to it's current position or home to the switches but either way it'll home and the DRO will then read all zeros.

Now the machine is homed and ready for you to tell it what to do. This procedure is the exact same at every start up. As stated earlier, you can close CNC12 and power down the machine with the gantry in any position. You dont have to park it or move it or do anything special.

What is your procedure? What errors are you getting?

The procedures you described are exactly my procedures actually.
By the way, I can’t duplicate the error I was getting
Shawn, I sent you a private message too.

[ShawnM]

Well, it appears you are homing correctly. I have not received the PM just yet.

[guerra_cues]

Well, it appears you are homing correctly. I have not received the PM just yet.

Just sent the PM.

[cnckeith]

install home switch on each axis at the end of the travel for that axis = machine zero position, aka "home"
i like to install them in series and wire to one input and assign the input as "HomeAll" in the wizard.
select Auto Home in the wizard which will generate a home program that will seek each switch individually during the homing cycle.
once each switch has been triggered and cleared each axis is at the home position and cnc12 sets machine zero position at that point.
part zero locations are relative to machine home. so if the homing cycle is consistent (meaning if you home the machine it always reaches the same point when done) the part zero locations are retained.

note: parking the machine is completely optional and has nothing to do with remembering the part zero locations (g54,55,56,57,58,59 etc) park is just a convenience feature to pre position the machine before powering off so that when you power it back on the machine does not have far to travel to reach the home switches, it is just a time saving feature thats all.

Hello Keith,
Each switch has it own input, so my switches are not in series and they are not mechanical, so they are pretty accurate.
The homing file has been customized so it does not try to zero the A axis since I don’t have a switch installed on it.
I just have a particular task that I would like not to move out from when I’m done cutting a pocket with a 90 degree cutter like I’m showing in the video.
When doing that task I’m tempted to change from automatic seek home to manual and that way I can home the machine on that spot. I can always change that to home automatically when I am done with that task. Do you think that it is a valid workaround?

hello. then you are good to go. what's the issue?

do a test to prove it to yourself.

set a G54 position anywhere. make a mark, move the machine anywhere, power off, power on, home out,
in MDI
G54
G1 X0Y0

and the machine will line back up with the mark you made.

note do not 'home' the machine at any other location other than the actual machine home position
are we just mixing up terms and definitions? Home does not = G54 (part zero locations)

[guerra_cues]

install home switch on each axis at the end of the travel for that axis = machine zero position, aka "home"
i like to install them in series and wire to one input and assign the input as "HomeAll" in the wizard.
select Auto Home in the wizard which will generate a home program that will seek each switch individually during the homing cycle.
once each switch has been triggered and cleared each axis is at the home position and cnc12 sets machine zero position at that point.
part zero locations are relative to machine home. so if the homing cycle is consistent (meaning if you home the machine it always reaches the same point when done) the part zero locations are retained.

note: parking the machine is completely optional and has nothing to do with remembering the part zero locations (g54,55,56,57,58,59 etc) park is just a convenience feature to pre position the machine before powering off so that when you power it back on the machine does not have far to travel to reach the home switches, it is just a time saving feature thats all.

Hello Keith,
Each switch has it own input, so my switches are not in series and they are not mechanical, so they are pretty accurate.
The homing file has been customized so it does not try to zero the A axis since I don’t have a switch installed on it.
I just have a particular task that I would like not to move out from when I’m done cutting a pocket with a 90 degree cutter like I’m showing in the video.
When doing that task I’m tempted to change from automatic seek home to manual and that way I can home the machine on that spot. I can always change that to home automatically when I am done with that task. Do you think that it is a valid workaround?

hello. then you are good to go. what's the issue?
do not 'home' the machine at any other location other than the actual machine home position

Hello Keith,

Sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’m good to go. I had a pow wow with Shawn and he was awesome. I had stuff almost right, just needed a few tweaks!