Homing not working but E Stop In is ?

andypugh wrote: You would need to connect that input pin to the HAL pin "halui.joint.0.home" but I do not know if stepconf knows how to do that.

I've certainly not seen "halui.joint.0.home" in the text within StepConf anywhere.

What does the Home X option or the All Home option do then?

If it only 'homes' when that halui bit is on but there's no way to set that bit within StepConf it seems a bit redundant?

Thanks again for your continued help with this

uptown47 wrote: If it only 'homes' when that halui bit is on but there's no way to set that bit within StepConf it seems a bit redundant?

Stepconf is designed to get a basic system basically configured. There is no way that it could ever manage to cover all the possibilities that HAL makes available.

Stepconf will create a system that homes from the GUI using home switches on the axes. If you want to begin the homing process from physical buttons then you will need to start editing your HAL and INI files. I say "your" files deliberately, they are designed to be human-edited, and will be unique to your config.

Ahhh, that makes sense. I think I've proven that my buttons work. Now I've just got to understand how to get the machine to actually "Home" and what that entails.

Here's a bit more detail on what I'm trying to do...
CNC Pictures

I've posted a picture of my Control Panel. I want to have 3 physical limit switches on the machine that will represent the "Home" position (basically moving the machine up and across to a corner).

I also thought it would be good to be able to 'manually' tell the machine it was Home. Hence the homing buttons on the Control Panel in that picture.

If I set StepConf up so that the inputs are "Both Limit X + Home", "Both Limit Y + Home" etc then I get a "Joint on Limit Switch" error within LinuxCNC (see the photo via that link I posted).

Is this set up impossible to achieve just directly through StepConf?

If so, what file am I editing to try and get it to behave this way? Is it the .ini file in my CNC folder or the .hal file? (or both?!?!)

Sorry if these are really basic questions but I've never used Linux before and I've not had any CNC experience before either. So this is quite a steep learning curve. Thanks again

uptown47 wrote: AIf I set StepConf up so that the inputs are "Both Limit X + Home", "Both Limit Y + Home" etc then I get a "Joint on Limit Switch" error within LinuxCNC

I haven't used stepconf since my first machine 7 years ago, so I am guessing here..

It might just be that the home switch inputs need to be inverted in stepconf (checkbox next to the pin)

Is this an immediate problem, or something that happens during homing?

When you press the limit switch you should see a little arrow next to that axis in the DRO. If that arrow disappears when you press the switch then inverting the input is definitely what you need to do.

Hi Andy

I've tried with and without inversion on the pins. I think the inputs are working. I think the problem is my understanding of what "homing" is meant to do and my set up is incorrect.

I was under the impression that, within StepConf, if I set up the X axis "Home Location" to be 10 (for instance).

Then I set an input on my breakout board to "Home X".

When the input comes on the X axis should wind itself to 10.

At the moment, when the input comes on nothing happens at all and if I go into LinuxCNC and choose to Home X from the software then the X axis just winds and winds indefinitely (I presume indefinitely - certainly a lot more than 10!).

I think the first problem I need to crack is to get the system "homing" correctly through the software. And then when that works I can concentrate on getting it to do it from the press of a button and an input on the breakout board.

Within StepConf I have ...
Home Location
Home Switch Location
Home Search Velocity
Home Latch Direction

With the exception of Home Search Velocity, I'm not sure how to configure these settings. Is this something you know off the top of your head? If not, I'll Google and search the forums but just thought I'd ask in the off-chance.

You've been a great help Andy and I think I'm going to end up resorting to manually editing the .ini / .hal files ultimately.

To use a shared home/limit switch, you need to make sure that the homing sequence is set up with an offset to move the axis off the limit switch during the homing sequence. See linuxcnc.org/docs/html/config/ini-homing.html