Every time I start my machine I have to Home it again, is this right?
Hey Joseph,
yes, driving all axes to their home positions enables the controller to know where its carriages are. Otherwise it would not know where they are. This is ensured by either limit sensors at the home positions (see retrofitted inductive proximity limit sensors or Elite photoelectric limit sensor) that are triggered then, or on the Onefinity Standard/Original series with stall homing.
See also Homing ≠Zeroing.
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Every time you power on the machine you SHOULD home it… You don’t have to as long as you know your code and that you won’t overrun one of the limits. If you do overrun a limit you will have a failed carve as it will crash and lose steps but keep running.
It is a good enough pattern to say you must… But it is not truly mandatory.
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What I do is I carefully move the gantries close to home before I power up.
Being a newbie I will figure out how to get home after running a program……eventually!!!
Hey BJ,
you are right, you could simply go with zeroing/probing. But you mentioned the restriction: To ensure you don’t hit the limits. The problem can arise if the carriages are away from the home positions at startup. The machine will assume that the carriages are at machine zero on startup and will still obey to the limits set in the controller configuration. I didn’t want to make it too complicated so I did not mention this 
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Hey Dan,
you can do it this way. But why should you if you have a home button?
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Dan,
You probably shouldn’t move the gantries by hand without power on the machine, it’s not healthy for it. If you didn’t know, an electric motor, when moved by an outside force becomes an electrical generator, and sends power to the system and can “fry” electronics. CNC machines are for the most part delicate when electrons flow that are not intended. You may well have not damaged it, but continuing to move it by hand isn’t a good thing.
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Where is that? Besides the Byron when you start up the machine….does it work after as well?
I did not know that but will be figuring out some other way
Thanks
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Hey Dan,
on the Elite Series with Masso controller it is here:
On the buildbotics-based Onefinity Standard Series Controller, there are little icons on the right of the CONTROL page with a little house on it. There, you can either home all axes or home each axis individually:
Image: Homing buttons (on the right)
Or, you can enter
G28
or
G53 G0 X0 Y0 Z0
into the MDI.
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I appreciate the info but when you double tap that home button it takes ffffffooooorrrrreeeeevvvveeeeerrr….(forever)
Maybe there is something I can tweek to make the gantry move faster. I can jog it home which I can control the speed. But you have to do that before shutting down machine because if you don’t when you start the machine it tells you to hit the e stop button and release it then home the system. It won’t give you any other options…….
Hey Dan,
I don’t know why your machine homes so slowly. I don’t have the Masso Controller.
You could also enter
G28
or
G53 G0 X0 Y0 Z0
into the command entry field of the manual data interface (MDI).
Hey Dan,
you can edit the homing settings here. This also includes setting Homing feedrate and also enabling the “Request Home on startup” and “Request Home after E-Stop press” option.
Usually when receiving a Masso Controller as a part of an Onefinity Elite machine, I would assume you have the correct default machine settings. Is this the case with your machine?
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Thank you very much, brand new user show all the information is helpful
@Aiph5u - the default feed rate for homing on the 1st gen controllers is pretty modest – something like “middle” speed on the gamepad controller it’s like 50 or 80ipm I think?
@JGTNRT - if you have the gamepad and 1st gen controller, you can move the gantries close to home before you click home. That’s what I do and it greatly speeds up the process. Or position the gantries before you turn it off (but who can remember that?? ;)).
Hope that helps.
-Tom
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Hey Tom,
I did not have a look at the value but I would say that when configuring the finding home routine, one has to program a speed that takes into account the method of limits sensing – if your machine has no limit sensors at all (as the TOS Onefinity machines) but homes with stall homing, which means intentionally bumping the carriages to the extrusion blocks (actually even bumping the Z assembly against the left Y carriage), it would not be ideal to be really fast :(.
Generally on homing, the machine has to assume that the limit could be encountered anywhere, so it shouldn’t be programmed with a that fast speed, as it cannot use a slowing down curve prior to reaching the limit. However, once the machine was homed at startup (how slow ever was necessary), you can still move home later with G28 or G53 G0 X0 Y0 Z0. G0 is “rapid move” and it halts gently at the (previously found) home positions.
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Yep, totally agree. Without knowing the bounds, slower is better! 
Hey Tom,
Driving the carriages home before shutdown is therefore somewhat wise
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I don’t , but I’m not making 47x31 pieces .
I home and zero where I place the wood to be worked on .
I prob do it once every 2 weeks .