Hey Tom,
I think I know what the problem is here: You do not know what “homing” is. “Homing” means to let the machine run all its carriages towards their machine zero position, where it will sense if this position is reached, and will then set the machine positions to zero. This step is mandatory as the carriages may have been moved while the machine was off. You do not need to repeat this step, it is only necessary once after power on.
“Returning to home position” is something else, it is driving the carriages back to this recorded home position, (e.g. with G28 or G53 G0 X0 Y0 Z0), also called “machine zero”.
If you think you have re-run the homing sequence more often than once per power up, then you seem to have a defect on your machine. It would have been wise to identify and fix this defect instead of buying another CNC controller.
You have to home a CNC machine exactly once, after power up. Whether you trigger that manually or the machine does it automatically after having been switched on, is no real difference.
Also with a tool-change routine for manual tool change like mine, you do not have to jog the router/spindle around or the re-home. I don’t know what you used as tool-change routine, but with my tool-change routine, all is done automatically: On encountering M6 (tool change) command, the spindle is stopped and moved to the manual tool change position, where you are told with popup windows and acknowledging with clicking on “continue” what to do, including probing the length of the new tool, and then continues to run the g-code program. If you had an error with a tool-change routine, why did you not tell about it?
What you describe here as “experience” which someone would encounter when buying and using the buildbotics-derived Onefinity Controller is by no means the experience of thousands of satisfied users. It is just your personal tragedy.
There is no g-code in my tool-change routine that would explain that. It seems, again, that your technical problems were not correctly identified and resolved.
I remember well the threads when I tried to help you. You had worked on expensive wood blanks, and you lost them due to defects with your machine. Before issues could be nailed down, you began to hate this CNC Controller and that’s the situation now. You are now a disciple of the Bashing the Onefinity Controller religion.
You may be right with saying that you had no issues with the new Masso CNC Controller. But the experience with the Buildbotics-derived Onefinity Controller you describe is by no means the experience a buyer will have to expect when choosing a PRO machine. There are thousands and thousands of buildbotics-derived Onefinity Controller users with their Original X-35, X-50 and PRO machines that are satisfied, because their machines works without errors.
There are things that I critized on the machines and the controllers. I am someone that uses very expensive wood blanks too, and I often wrote that I would not use a Onefinity machine for professional use without modifications. Some things were improved by the Onefinity manufacturer, and it was not only the Elite/Masso machines that benefit from this, but the Original/X-50 machines the same way too, which are now the PRO machines. And some criticism remains from my side, but for both machines, the Elite AND the PRO.
I think it is not fair to tell new users that your experience and the issues you did not nail down because you continued production without having fixed them will be what they will experience when buying a PRO machine. Because it is not correct.
Onefinity based its succes on the machines with the buildbotics-derived Onefinity Controller, and it was these machines that they offered exclusively for more than two years before they released the Elite/MASSO variant. Never would they have had that success if the buildbotics-derived Onefinity Controller gave buyers the negative experiences you described. That’s logical, isn’t it?