Homing

[Reeltime273]

Good Morning All,

Is the Centroid Allin1DC system supposed to remember your home axis settings? I set my home last weekend and turned machine on this weekend, it didn't remember home setting from last weekend. I re-homed the machine yesterday morning, ran through the additional adjustments set course DRO, autotuned the DC motors, rebooted the system and it did not recognize those settings. Has anyone else had this issue?

This morning I went back to recheck my work, I have reread the installation manual and watched the videos again pertaining to this subject. I set home on the machine again this morning, had to also reset software limit travel. After making these settings, I ran the machine self test, this morning I was able to get through the "X" axis movement, the test failed on the "Y" axis. I have never been able to get this far before, it faults when hitting the "Y" axis positive limit switch. Unfortunately, I have made a lot of adjustments within the software and I only have a report file from today.

This is a Anilam Crusader M retrofit, on that system, you had to set home every time you turned the machine on and you had to "home" in a specific order, that machine did not have limit switches. Is the Centroid system similar? I was under the impression that it is a closed loop system and always knows the location. Does it matter where you set home? Do you have to reset your travel limits if you home in a different position? On the main start up screen, I continue to get "Warning: machine Home Not Set". The machine will not run the CNC.hom file.

Can anyone assist?

[cncsnw]

On the Control Configuration screen, you need to set "Home at Powerup" to "Home Switch". If you set "Home at Powerup" to "Home Switch", then CNC12 will run the cncm.hom file when you press Cycle Start.

You appear to have had that selection when you made the report you posted; but you had changed it by the time you took the screen picture above.

Do all of your limit switches work properly?
E.g. if you slow jog X onto the minus limit switch, does INP2 trip open? Can you then slow jog X+ to clear the limit switch?
If you slow jog Y onto the plus limit switch, does INP3 trip open? Can you then slow jog Y- to clear the limit switch?
If you slow jog Z onto the plus limit switch, does INP5 trip open? Can you then slow jog Z- to clear the limit switch?

[cncsnw]

To answer some of your other questions:

Any time the power has been turned off and back on, the Centroid control needs to find home.
You should set it up to home using the home/limit switches, so that it can find the same home every time.
Because you are going to set it up to find the same home every time, you should only need to set your travel limits once.

[Reeltime273]

Hello cncsnw,

Thanks for responding. I have tested the integrity of the limit switches, I utilize the jog panel to move each axis in one (1) direction until I hits the limit switch, I then jog in the opposite direction. When I go to the diagnose screen, I can see the limit switches trip and clear and have tested all 3 axis. So I believe, that the switches are wired correctly and operating as designed, correct?

Where is the best position to set home, center of table? Or would it be better to set it at one (1) of the limit switches on each axis? What is everybody else doing for their knew mills? is there anything else I'm missing?

At one time I had the "Home at Powerup" set to "Home Switch", I have changed it back and forth a couple of times. When I hit the "Cycle Start" button on the pendant, it doesn't do anything, program won't run. Do I need to modify the cncm.hom file to run properly?

Current File:
M92/Z
M26/Z
M91/X
M26/X
M92/Y
M26/Y

[cncsnw]

Home should be set just in front of the switch, not in the middle of travel.

If you home using the standard macro, such as you posted, it will do that: M91 or M92 leave the axis just in front of the switch (with the switch not tripped); and M26 sets home on the axis where it sits.

At one time I had the "Home at Powerup" set to "Home Switch", I have changed it back and forth a couple of times. When I hit the "Cycle Start" button on the pendant, it doesn't do anything, program won't run.

Set "Home at Powerup" to "Home Switch" again; shut down and restart if necessary so that it tells you Machine Home is not set. Then take a video that clearly shows the whole screen, while you press Cycle Start to find home.

Post a link to that video here. When you press Cycle Start, it should either home using cncm.hom, or it should tell you the reason why not.

[Reeltime273]

Hello All,

I was able to sneak away to my shop this afternoon for a few minutes, I reset my "Y" axis home at the front of the table in front of the switch along with the soft stops. I can utilize the pendant to jog to either the "Y" negative or "Y" positive until it hits the soft stops and then jog in the opposite direction. If I'm able to jog in the opposite direction after I hit the soft stops, I assume that this is proper operation. I set the soft stops .1000" in front of the limit switch, these values I entered in the jog setup screen. Once the home, and limit were set, I modified the cncm.hom file to:

M92/Z
M26/Z
M91/X
M26/X
M91/Y
M26/Y

The revise file causes the machine to jog against the front of the knee. Every time I run the cncm.hom program, "Z" and "X" go the assigned home setting, however, the "Y" axis travels beyond the soft stop and hits the limit switch, E-Stop activates and it faults.

Also today, I notice the axis DRO number values go blank when the E-stop is activated, the DRO never shows and axis location after the E-Stop is cycled. Is this normal and related to me not being able capture the "Y" home? Should I always be able to see the DRO number value locations? I have attached a picture of the screen, DRO values are missing, a new report and I will also attach a video of the cncm.hom program running.

[Reeltime273]

Video Link:

[cncsnw]

You appear to have both X and Y moving backwards.

On a knee mill, X+ is tool-right, which requires table-left. X- is tool-left, which requires table-right.

Similarly, Y+ is tool-back, which requires saddle-forward; and Y- is tool-forward, which requires saddle-back.

I recommend fixing those things first.

Then get your home and limit switch input numbers entered correctly on the Machine Configuration -> Motor Parameters table.

On the X axis, if direction reversal is "N", then the minus limit and home should be 1 and the plus limit and home should be 2.
On the X axis, if direction reversal is "Y", then the minus limit and home should be 2 and the plus limit and home should be 1.

On the Y axis, if direction reversal is "N", then the minus limit and home should be 3 and the plus limit and home should be 4.
On the Y axis, if direction reversal is "Y", then the minus limit and home should be 4 and the plus limit and home should be 3.

So, if you correct the axis directions, you will need to change the X limit and home numbers. The Y limit and home numbers are wrong for the current configuration, but would be right for the corrected configuration.

If you prefer to continue running with both X and Y reversed from usual (so all your parts are rotated 180 degrees compared with what you see on the screen) then you can leave the X home and limit numbers as they are, and correct the Y limit and home numbers to read 4, 3, 4, 3.

Once you have sorted out directions and switch numbers, then test your switches and see whether the switch that trips when you overtravel in the minus direction is wired to the minus limit input; and whether the switch that trips when you overtravel in the plus direction is wired to the plus input. If not, then you need to swap the wires at the PLC input terminals.

[Reeltime273]

I made those correction as recommended. All axis are moving per post. Yesterday the “X” and “Z” axis were good, the program ran until it called for the “Y” axis command, then it halted.

Today the only axis I can get it to run is “Z”, it runs the “X”, table moves I one direction until it hits the limit switch hard stop,

[tblough]

When the machine halted, what was the error message? We can't see what you see so it's hard diagnosing the problem when the only information we have is "it halted". We need the error message from the log window, and a report file taken right after the error happened so we can see how the software is configured. Take another video of what's happening - those help a lot!