Showcase Showdown – CNC Machine Limit Switches
While the shakedown of my Nimitz-class super CNC machine continues, here’s a look at how I rigged the limit switches. As a side note, shakedown refers to finding a way to keep the shaking down while moving the gantry, but more on that later. I picked up plenty of microswitches with rollers from eBay, just the cheap Chinese variety. Then made more custom brackets from HDPE plastic I had lying around.
X axis limit switch, x2
The Rockcliff controller board was easy enough to connect to the microswitches, but required .1 uF cap to ground for the three axises and E-stop to cut down the noise. Each axis shares two microswitches at each end; the software sorts out which one by the direction it was traveling, supposedly. For saftey’s sake, all the switches and E-stop are active high and use the normally closed side. This setup will prevent the machine from running if there is a wiring fault, like a wire break then crashing.
Y axis limit switct, x2 also.
I used two conductor, stranded and shielded cable for any wiring that was stationary and threaded through easily accessible hollow places. A stretchy surplus keyboard cord was used for the section that moved, as described in the previous post.
Z axis limit switch
The bottom had to be cut in half for clearance. Meh, 1 out of 6 ain't bad.
So, yeah. Now it’s all about getting the settings for the Mach3Mill software right and then on to preparing for the first cut. I’m thinking of rigging up a pen for the initial trials…
End Communication.
