[rthorntn]

Hi,

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I have EMC2 installed, not got the CNC running yet though.

I have been researching home/limits and it just occurred to me today that EMC2 might support using a webcam to find home?

I think this is what is:

EMC Documentation Wiki: Axis Embed Video

Am I understanding correctly, could I get a USB webcam supported under linux, mount this on my spindle, connect it to the EMC PC, calibrate it to a certain spot and use it to find home?

Thanks again.

Richard

[melee]

There is a long thread on the linuxcnc.org website (currently down for upgrade) under the AXIS sub heading on the use of camview-emc and cameras generally.

It is primarily for precise measurement, positioning etc.

You could use it for finding home, if you had a way of completely ensuring the same mounting position in your spindle every time, but all that would achieve is something that can be done better by a couple of homing switches.

The actual position of home is not normally important, it is the precise return to home and the accuracy of the offsets made from it that effect the workpiece.

If you overrun or stall for whatever reason lose position and have to re-home to continue, do you want to have to remove your tooling, precisely align and insert the camera and manually jog to a particular mark or just jog off the home switches and press 'Home All'?

regards

[CaptainVee]

As I see it now it is too difficult for me to make it work on the software side but the hardware part shouldn't be too difficult.

I have a kress mounted in a 43 mm collet, taking that out and replacing it with webcam that has it's center in the middle of the 43 mm would be easy and precise and easier than fitting home switches which I do not have at the moment.

[ninefinger]

Who says the webcam has to be spindle mounted? Mount it to the side of the head and measure the offset from the spindle center line. Its not like the spindle is going anywhere so the offset will always be the same.

To me the hard part is making the software recognize that it is on center when homing - that is so called machine vision and I'm not sure how to make EMC2 work with that.. more reading is in my future....

Mike