If you are not working the relay then it’s in Mach3 or the hook up with your controller. If you get 0 ohms (short ) when checking then the problem is at the CNC connector on the PP60C.
Use the trigger I talked about above in Mach3 (m3 on m5 off) the ohm meter should show a short (0.0 ohms) when M3 is entered and no ohms when M5 is triggered. Hook the ohm meter to the orange output connections and hook the orange connection to the output of your controller and ground to the black connection unless you are using the PBX-FF connector. It look like the output is connected to the orange wires for the lower relay, if you have an ohm meter you can check to see if it’s working. Here is one way to setup a limit switch so that it can be adjusted a little bit. Just make sure everything is smooth and that your motors are drawing as little power as possible. If anything binds or exceeds the torque of the motors, you could drop a step or more. That is one problem with open loop type stepper systems. Then you could setup home switches for each motor so that the gantry always returns to a square state before starting a program. The best way would be to take the measurements of a large triangle marked out on the table. As far as getting both motors on the same axis to be in sync, you will need to check that your axis are 90 degrees from each other. You can use a dial indicator to verify that the position repeats. There needs to be as little slop in that switch setup as possible. True limit switches trigger the E-Stop, while home switches allow the control to go to a repeatable position.
#Setting up sheetcam for a homemade plasma cutter how to
I'm looking for hints on how to make sure they are lined up appropriately.I believe what you are talking about are home switches. So, I'm under the impression that placement of the limit switches must be exact. I think I read that Mach uses limit switches to correct any racking (misaligment of motors on the long axis). But you can see that if you use that direction, use lose a lot of screen area for your metal since the monitor is wider than tall.
This guy has his axis with X as the short one and Y for the long since he works from the short end of the table.
Have you seen these? They are kinda basic, but they show some of the possible machine setups. If you want to draw blueprints or patterns just dial your kerf setting down to zero and don't use lead-ins and you have made a nice plotter. Yeah, a pen holder can be handy at times. Just imagine how you want your computer screen to lay on the table and that will tell you what your axis and directions need to be. It's just more tools in your toolbox, as someone likes to say. Like if you have a part to cut that has some existing cuts or other things you have to line up on, like drilled or tapped holes. There are times where having the origin in a different place is real handy. But right now you have a direction or two that are reversed. Once you have your directions right, you can move the origin around from job to job between SheetCam and Mach and nothing will change.