Mach 3 doesn't see my limit/home swithces

[goplumcrazy]

I have built a plasma table and my motors run but none of the limit\home switches are seen in my mach 3 program. On my breakout board I have +24 volts connected to 24V on the card with ground to DCM. I have my y axis wired to IN2 and z axis wired to IN3. I'm not using a switch on X axis yet. I have my switches wired NC with Ports and Pins set to port 1 with pin number 10 for my y++ y-- and y home. For my z++, z-- and z home I have set to port 1 pin 11 and under active low it has a red X. Under my Diagnostics tab nothing is reading. I am completely new to CNC and mach 3. I feel like there is something that should be checked that I am missing. I have watched a ton of you tube videos and can't figure out what I am missing. Help Please.

[robertspark]

have you set up the limits within the inputs tab of Mach 3 to the respective axis?

are your physical inputs wired as switches to the zero volt terminal or to the 24v input?

what physical motion controller board are you using, do you have a manual?

[goplumcrazy]

Yes, I have set the inputs to the respective axis on port 1 and the switches are wired to the 24v input. I have measured voltage on all switches and measure continuity on all switches. I have verified continuity breaks when the switches are engaged. The controller board did not come with a manual. It is the second one I bought off amazon. Today I ordered another board from BuildyourCNC. It looks exactly like the ones I ordered from AMazon except instead of $25 it cost $89.99. I paid the extra money because if it doesn't work I at least have a number to call and talk to someone.

[tcaudle]

This is kinda like baking you own decorative cake using a box of mix from 2014. Several things have to mesh and there is no one source you can call and each vendor will simply point to someone else.

You did not elaborate but if its a Parallel port breakout card then MACH3 has to have its PORT address (in General Settings) correct , It is like to ships passing in the night if its wrong. . While most motherboard parallel ports are a the same HEx address , expansion cards acan be all over the map If the BoB has no status lights to show you input state, than you only have the diagnostics and that shows you the inputs in MACH3 . There should be a dual row of RAW PORT BITS) and that is the actual pins on the port itself .

I suspect you I/O card and the sport setup in MACH3 are not on the same page.

If it is a USB to MACH then it gets a lot more complicated in that the Port address is moot. Its all about the card drivers and setting up those in MACH.

The problem with building a CNC machine out of parts and pieces is there is ALWAYS something that crops up that takes a lot of time and searching to track down.

[robertspark]

reading your post again and doing a search it looks like you may be using this usb motion controller

https://buildyourcnc.com/item/electroni ... -USB-Board

I've never used usb with mach3 (I no longer use mach3,4 or uccnc)

from what I've read you are really likely to struggle with some realtime functions possibly such as probing and touch off, homing axis possibly and most definitely torch height control as all of these functions are actually dependent on the motion controller and have little to do with Mach 3 as they require the motion controller programmer to programme these functions into the motion controller and report back to mach3 the toggle status of limits etc.

[acourtjester]

I have used that card on CNC table but not for Plasma, It only has 4 inputs so if you want to use a THC you will be limited. Now another thing is you must install the RnRMotion.dll for the card to work correctly. From the attached PDF for the board it uses port 3 for the home/limits inputs.

Red board info file.pdf

(292.91 KiB) Downloaded 1 time

[goplumcrazy]

I have found my problem. I bought the card off Amazon and it didn't come with a manual. As I was going through my old email I found a message from the seller (Kuku Tech) had sent me an email with the manual. I don't have it wired to their wiring diagram. I have all my homing and limit switches wired NC and they show it has to be NO. Also all the home switches are on IN3, all limit switches are on IN2. That is not how I have it wired. I'm going to return the BOB because I don't want NO switches. I don't know why I didn't get the wiring diagram and manual when I purchased the item. Thank you for all your input.

[acourtjester]

If you are using the card Robert show above you can use NC switches, I had all axis home/limits in series NC and Mach 3 will allow either NC or NO switch inputs to be used.