Mach3 Router homing and offset setup

Hi Machine Heads,

I'm new to this forum and hoping I'm posting in the right place. I'm hoping to find someone local in South East suburbs of Melb. who can help me and mentor me through setting up my 3D router using Mach3. I have it working fine with all limit switches and travel calibrated but am struggling to understand setting up the default home position, how the machine knows where it's XYZ is after power up and how to set the offsets for placing a job on the table. Watched some of the youtube vids and just got more confused. Thanks.

Home is always at your home switches. That is machine zero position. You should ALWAYS home your machine after power on, and after each emergency stop.
Offsets, that is another pair of socks :)
After homing, your machine is in G54 offset, which is initially 0, 0, 0. When you place your material on router table, you drive your tool to the lower left corner, or center of your material and zero your X and Y axes, then you lower your tool to the material surface, or top of your table, and zero Z axis.
These zeroes are your G54 offsets or G54 machine coordinates.
If you want to multiply your design, then you need to dig deeper in G-code, macros, ...

Hi ZASto,

Thanks for replying. Please pardon my lack of knowledge.. I have setup my home position by assigning the -X, -Y and +Z limit switches so when the machine is homed the 3 limit switches are hit and Mach3 stops. What I don't know is how to tell the machine to start when its been stopped by hitting the limit switches. I understand that once I'm there I home and set G54 as 0,0,0 but haven't worked out how to make Mach3 start again. I've just been backing off the ballscrews a little so the limit switch is no longer active. Hope you can explain that for me.

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Originally Posted by RedZed400

I have setup my home position by assigning the -X, -Y and +Z limit switches so when the machine is homed the 3 limit switches are hit and Mach3 stops. What I don't know is how to tell the machine to start when its been stopped by hitting the limit switches.

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First of all, there are limit switches and there are home switches. Those are different things, although in some machines the same switch may serve as both.

I presume your machine is built that way: the same switch (the same input) is configured as a limit switch and as a home switch. In that case, Mach3 ignores the limits during the homing procedure. After homing, any hit of a limit switch is treated as an emergency. The machine goes in Emergency Stop mode until the operator resets it. This is normal.

Does your Mach3 home automatically (by clicking the Ref All button)? Or are you manually jogging to the limit switches?