Limit Switch Error - another new user

Software
1

I’ve tried everything I can think of. Carbide Motion 2.0.314, Mac OS 10.9.5. I’m able to move the cutter. I set zero. Everything looks good until I Begin Project. The table and carriage move around, the tool is remeasured, the carriage moves to the middle and the spindle spins up. The table does seem to be as far towards the front as possible.Then the carriage moves to the right, stops, and I get the limit switch error.

I have moved the table to the center on X and Y axis after powering off. I have tried zeroing in a a non-zero position, rebooted dozens of times.

I’m currently downloading the update to OS 10.10 and I’ve run out of ideas to troubleshoot this. Any ideas??

2

Gary, have you physically zeroed the cutter (relative to the stock) in the same place you set Program Zero in MeshCAM?

3

Just doing the wrench tutorial, so I haven’t even fired up MeshCam. I’m stuck.

4

OK, you’re zeroing the cutter on the top of the stock in the front left corner?

5

Yes. I understand the “front” to be the edge closest to the acrylic door.

6

OK. I’m not sure what might be happening. The gcode file is self-contained, and sets inch units and absolute coordinates.

Here’s the first move (seen in CutViewer, which lets me single-step the gcode), which is only about half an inch from the zero point (which is the little magenta triad):

firstmove.PNG1111×397 4.85 KB

and here is the finished product. You can see that the first move is to the near side of the round end of the wrench:

finished.PNG1095×363 17.5 KB

7

At the beginning of the gcode, Carbide Motion should be moving the cutter to the same X-Y point you zeroed it and then down to just above the stock, and then it makes the first move I showed above.

8

I’ll try re-downloading the wrench file tomorrow. The OS update is still downloading and I tried running the project so many times (>3 dozen ) I can’t see trying it again. Thanks for your advice.

9

Can you tell / see what switch is being tripped? is it the spindal carriage or the table? It sounds like it’s the table since you mentioned that when the spindal starts up, the table is right at the front.

If it’s the table, try putting the stock somewhere other than the bottom left corner of the spoil board. Move it up to the middle left of the table / spoil board. Then zero the bottom left side of the stock in that new position. If for some reason the table is tripping the switch, moving the stock away from the front edge may help you diagnose the problem since you will be changing a reference point in meshcam.

And how exactly are you zeroing in meshcam? Moving the cutter to the bottom left of the stock, clicking set zero, zeroing out each axis separately - and then clicking done, quit, and then load file?

10

@garyinco Shoot me an email tomorrow and we’ll set up a Skype call to figure it out.

11

Well, got that sorted out. Talking w/ Jorge today I thought I might have missed one button click (Zero All). He confirmed the thought. Made sure to do that this time and it worked perfectly.