Please help, I need some addvise

Andy is right. You are trying to make your Z movement upside-down. Movement up needs to be positive. The machine needs to be laid out like a Cartesian drawing, with Z increasing upwards, X increasing left to right, and Y increasing deeper.

See this image I shamelessly stole from someplace I googled.

you have the z axis reversed
it should be 0 and numbers increasing as you go up

if this is a step direction drive then inverting the direction pin will reverse this .
you can also reverse the stepper motor connections to the driver to accomplish the same goal

you then touch off the top surface of the workpeice and set this as 0.0 , which then means all milling or cutting moves become negative

rather than have homing switch connected to the lower move this to the top

have you a picture or model number of the drive in question ?

Here's the thing, when I set the limits as they should be, “mim-home-z” for top of Z, “max-limit-z”
at the bottom of Z, the step-direction pin not inverted, Z goes down looking for the min-home limit.

The motor is turning the wrong direction.

When I invert the step-direction pin it works (it homes correctly) but, the values increase as I go down, not up.
Are the coordinate signs on the Axis screen not to be trusted?

I think the motor needs to be reversed. Am I wrong?

Cncbasher, I know it's a pain to find the photos I posted on the thread already (we have a novel in the works here) but there are some. The driver is Anaheim Automation’s DPF65003. (Old, butin good shape).
Switching the motor wires would be an easy fix, I just need to make sure I move the correct ones and get them were they need to be. Zap, smoke, new driver/motor!

What dose “exceeded positive soft limit” mean?
With the “max-limit” being at or near zero (because it's home), and “min-limit” at total travel down I'm not clear how this applies.

You folks all know this already, but here is another example of how flexible Lcnc is.
You can even set it up and run it while being all screwed up on your part!

I've said this before, I think I have this squared away.

I changed the wiring on the motor and got the correct travel with the keyboard and numerical report on screen. I pulled the set parameter command for the pin inversion on the Z step-dir.

I have homing working again, and the soft stops are functioning as they should.
Setting up Z was easier once the motor went the correct direction. (Imagine that)!

Thanx

I've got a joystick mounted to this machine and wired to the third parport.
Can anyone point me towards a tutorial on how to set that up?
All I can find is folks using game controlers (USB) and pads.

Sorry, I got nothing.

I'd suggest starting a new topic on the subject.