Machine co-ordinates button in Mach 3

I just ran a job and zero'd the axis using REF ALL and mistakenly must have switched between Prog co-ordinates and machine co-ordinates. The axis were all zero's but I assume in the machine co-ordinates I still had a zalue for the Z axis, ran the job and whilst the machine was dropping down and traversing ready to make the cut it ramped down into the job and wrecked it.

I just wondered why Mach 3 has two lots of co-ordinate systems? When I zero the axis I check between them to ensure that everything is at 0,0,0 when I set the datum position in the lower left corner with the toolbit kissing the work.

Can anyone put it simply why Mach 3 has these two sets of reference points?

Loverley isn't it :whistling:

Mach has the two co-ordinate systems to mimic how the big boys operate, remember they have to please all comers.

Machine co-ordinates are for when a machine has homing switches and it's zero points is at these switches. You then swap to work co-ordinates and zero the part.

To run the machine you use machine co-ordinates and ref all with takes you to the home switches, you then invoke a G54 which switches to work co-ordinates and moves to the work zero.

When we were developing the Sieg KX series of machines and writing the manual [ in English !! ] this was one point that was confusing most people, remember we are talking about absolute beginners here.

In the end we rewrote the Sieg screen software so that machine co-ordinates and work co-ordinates were one and the same because the KX1 and KX3 don't use homing switches.

They can once you loose the training wheels but most people stay with what they were taught.