Hello,

I am rather new to CNC'ing.
I just converted a 3 axis engraving machine to CNC, using a chinese 3 axis stepper driver board. Before fitting the board, the machine was using a serial interface and after turning on the machine , the machine homed itself.

Now after the conversion i want to do that in mach 3.
The machine has 3 limit switches on all axis (X, Y and Z).

When i jog the machine to hit the limit it shuts off and i cannot jog it off the limit switch (i have now made a bridge button, which temporarily disconnects the limit switches GND), then hit reset holding the button and i can jog it off.
After that the machine works just fine.

Now my questions:
1. How can i let the machine "find" the switches and then automatically move a bit off to some sort of home position and call that 0,0,0 ?

2. And how can i set the limits the machine may travel measured from the limit switch, since i only have a limit switch on 1 end of all the axis, when i move it all the way to the other side i want it to stop before hitting the end of the axis. Is there some way telling Mach3 that it has to stop after 12 inches ? Even if there is no switch on the other end ?