General Recommendations on Setting up Home/Limit Switches:
- Note that the Limit function is disabled while homing, so it is smart to use the same switches for homing and limits. It is also a good practice to connect positive and negative signals to the same input, as the control software cares only to know which axis the signal comes from, but the software knows in what direction the axis is moving.
- Test with just one switch. Once the setup for that switch is complete, proceed to the other switches, which should be configured the same way as the first one.
- When you wire the switch, test it and watch for action on the LED on the breakout board. Also use the Diagnostics Screen to verify that the Motion Controller/Control Software is seeing the input signal.
- Enable Homing and disable Limits for the axis you wired and test homing. You may need to invert the active High/Low for the input signal. Depending on how you define the table and the location of the switch, you may need to set an offset to make sure the Machine Zero is located in the desired position.
- If using a slaved axis, make sure to use independent switches for each axis in order to use the auto-square feature.
- Once homing for the axis works correctly, enable and test the limits. If, when you enable them, you immediately get a limit error, you need to invert the active High/Low of that signal.
- Finally, it is good practice to enable and configure Softlimits. These will be active after homing the machine, and by knowing the position of the limit switches, the machine can slow down near the limits and will warn or prevent you from crashing it.