mach3 soft limits

[Kitwn]

I'm not familliar with MACH3, only LinuxCNC but your last message gives the impression that you are missing the point that "Ref All' sets the current position of the machine to zero, wherever it happens to be (if I interpret Jazz's comment in reply #4 correctly). There is nothing to tell the controller where the machine is actually positioned so 'zero' will be a different place every time. The point of homing switches is that the machine moves blindly towards the switches and as soon as it hits them it suddenly knows where it is and can call that 'zero' which will be the same place every time. Manually hitting 'Ref All' becomes redundant and should never need to be done once propper homing is installed.

Soft limits put a limit on how far the machine can move from zero so if zero is wrong soft limits will not help you prevent crashes. Once homing is working correctly soft limits become your best friend but whoever told you to set them up first has sadly wasted a lot of your time. I stick by my preferred order of events in post #5

Good luck getting everything working.

Kit