Motion limits, are there safety zones?

Had a question on this machine, do you have hard limits or soft limits set up?
What happens when you jog into the stop of an axis, does the motor alarm out or shut off?
I’m used to CNC mills having limits.
David.

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Neither carriage has limit switches; both carriages reach their limits of travel as a result of mechanical interference. Nothing will be damaged, and its actually pretty common to hit the limits of travel.

The motors are strong enough to accelerate/decelerate the carriages for cutting, but not so strong that they cause physical damage when the limits of travel are reached.

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Are replacement lead screw nuts available for purchase as a consumable?

How hard would it be to install max travel switch that would effectively cut off the motors? My 3D printer which uses lead screws and is all metal (including the nuts) has those on. Excellent safety guard when you inadvertently push the wrong button and send the head flying to -500 mm on a 300mm printer :slight_smile: -ask me how I know LOL

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I was thinking about doing something like that when I get mine. My 3D printer has the same thing. It uses them for homing its axis too. I was thinking it would be nice to add one to the X and Y axis that way when you are finding the machine origin you can just drive the X- until you hit the limit switch then drive Y- until you hit its limit switch. Then if you zero out both axis on their switches and have a limit switch on X+ and Y+ you can drive the machine until you hit each of those and document your real world max travels and be very consistent from one setup to the next. I’m no electronics expert but rather than having the power go directly from the controller to the motor could you have the power go from the controller through the limit switches and then to their respective motor? I would think that would work as long as you used “normally closed” limit switches. Would love to hear your thoughts. I just ordered my machine so I assume it will be awhile before I get it.

On 3D printers, the switches are wired to specific “limit switch” receptacles. our board doesn’t have those that I can tell.

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Sure it does… There are open inputs on the board. Mach 3 can assign these inputs as limit switches.

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