(ALARM:9) Homing fail. Could not find limit switch?

[aquanub]

Hey all,

Finally got my power route assembly complete after a few hiccups.

Currently have it hooked up and am running UGS 2.0 Platform.

Running its first homing cycle. It reaches the Z and Y Endstops no problem, but I get an error before it touches the X axis.

"(ALARM:9) Homing fail. Could not find limit switch within search distances. Try increasing max travel(ALARM:9) Homing fail. Could not find limit switch within search distances. Try increasing max travel
Error while processing response <ok>: An unexpected command was completed by the controller."

Any ideas as to what I should do to fix this?

Thanks!

[stever]

Aug 26, 2018 5:22:15 GMT aquanub said:

Hey all,

Finally got my power route assembly complete after a few hiccups.

Currently have it hooked up and am running UGS 2.0 Platform.

Running its first homing cycle. It reaches the Z and Y Endstops no problem, but I get an error before it touches the X axis.

"(ALARM:9) Homing fail. Could not find limit switch within search distances. Try increasing max travel(ALARM:9) Homing fail. Could not find limit switch within search distances. Try increasing max travel
Error while processing response <ok>: An unexpected command was completed by the controller."

Any ideas as to what I should do to fix this?

Thanks!

Different machine, but it sounds a lot like what is going on in this thread.
millrightcnc.proboards.com/thread/1440/arrgghhh-new-issue
Give it a read and see if it helps.

[Derek the Admin]

As stever mentioned it seems like it’s that, though Imthe default travel distances in settings allow for plenty of room. Grbl alarms after 1.5 times the distance specified in those settings is traveled.

I would like to see the settings though as that’s the easiest thing to rule out. You can access them by typing $$ in the command line then enter.

[aquanub]

Aug 26, 2018 12:01:51 GMT Derek the Admin said:

As stever mentioned it seems like it’s that, though Imthe default travel distances in settings allow for plenty of room. Grbl alarms after 1.5 times the distance specified in those settings is traveled.

I would like to see the settings though as that’s the easiest thing to rule out. You can access them by typing $$ in the command line then enter.

>> $$
$0=10
$1=255
$2=0
$3=3
$4=0
$5=0
$6=0
$10=1
$11=0.010
$12=0.002
$13=0
$20=0
$21=0
$22=1
$23=0
$24=35.000
$25=800.000
$26=200
$27=4.000
$30=12000
$31=0
$32=1
$100=100.000
$101=100.000
$102=200.000
$110=10500.000
$111=9525.000
$112=2200.000
$120=600.000
$121=600.000
$122=200.000
$130=632.000
$131=626.000
$132=128.000
ok


Also, another dumb question... if I manually jog the machine up to a limit switch, and it activates it... shouldnt it trigger an alarm? it seems like it will let me keep going.

[aquanub]

I just tried to do a simple sketch / trace of a shape. It seems like the Y scale is correct, but the X scaling is not 1:1 with the Y.

For example, if I'm trying to draw a circle, its making an oval instead. Everything looks good in fusion 360 / UGS when previewing

[Derek the Admin]

You can make it recognize the switches outside of a homing cycle by turning on hard limits. You can type $21=1 then enter to turn that on.

The situation you are describing is pretty puzzling because the settings look fine and there is a good amount of filtration on the breakout board for the PR.

When you command it to move a specific distance on the X is it traveling that expected distance? IE: is a 10mm move traveling 10mm?

Have you run this on a stable UGS build? Sometimes nightly builds do unpredictable things.

[aquanub]

Aug 26, 2018 16:14:48 GMT Derek the Admin said:

You can make it recognize the switches outside of a homing cycle by turning on hard limits. You can type $21=1 then enter to turn that on.

The situation you are describing is pretty puzzling because the settings look fine and there is a good amount of filtration on the breakout board for the PR.

When you command it to move a specific distance on the X is it traveling that expected distance? IE: is a 10mm move traveling 10mm?

Have you run this on a stable UGS build? Sometimes nightly builds do unpredictable things.

Yes, movement is fine. I've verified it in all axis'. I will try a stable UGS build (I thought the 2.0 Platform was) and report back, should I try 1.0.9?. The scaling issue is throwing me off.

edit- weird, I downloaded the 2.0 under the stable listing and it still says nightly.

[aquanub]

tried it in a stable build, it is still off.

is there some scaling command/setting for the X axis I can check?

do I need to modify the $100, $101, $102 settings to get a step/mm value with respect to the power screw? Right now they are default values.

[Derek the Admin]

It’s a good question, but that’s why I asked about the movement distance though. The DIP switches get verified and movement distances confirmed before it ships, but I wanted to make sure. The X needs to match the Y. You confirming that the movement distances are okay cleared that up though.

What happens if you command another homing cycle? It sounds much like interference but I can’t understand that because there is an RC filter that is pretty adequately sized to prevent noisy triggers.

The stable shouldn’t say nightly. I wonder if the UGS GitHub has something linked wrong. When I get to a computer a I’ll see what it looks like from my end.

Also, are you sure you don’t have the plugs switched?

[aquanub]

Ok my mistake. I just took a ruler and actually measured the X movement and it appears to be off by a factor of 5. Earlier I was measuring such tiny increments it was hard to tell.

For example if I set a jog of 100mm in the X direction, it actually only moves 20mm. I think its is also what is throwing my homing cycle off because its taking too long to travel the span as you mentioned before.

I think this is the issue now. Perhaps you can point me to the right dipswitch? Ive found some controller manuals online but it seems to be out of my scope (from my research I think its one of the 5,6,7, or 8 switches). I've attached a photo of the how the switches are currently positioned below:

-edit: going off of the Y (since its correct): the switches are on, on, on, off... I'm assuming the X should be the same? One microstep is set to 5 and one is 25. I guess it confirms the scale of 5 that is it off based on the measurements.

[Derek the Admin]

X should look like Y. That explains it but I still don’t see how it happened. One person sets the drivers in the box and another makes the wires up and checks that 10mm in commanded movement equal one rotation on the X and Y and 4mm if commanded movement is a rotation in the Z. Making X switches look like the Y switches will solve that. Make sure everything is unplugged before going in the box though.

[aquanub]

Perfect, no sweat... stuff happens. Just re-ran the homing cycle and no issues.

Anyhow, looks like its good to go now. Thank you once again for your time & assistance.