My axes are working. Has anyone ever used a limit switch like this?
Looks like a old style stroke counter for mud pumps on a drilling rig!
It’s a roll over mechanism. It requires greater force than others to set off.
Have you tried hall sensors?
Are those the proximity sensors?
They can be both -limit and homing switches
I have a case of proximity sensors from China I could use. They aren’t the Hall effect sensors, but they’d work.
I just posted an example of the type on here under discussion
Wooiee that’s fancy! I use fairly standard microswitches. I’d probably use ones like this if I had them.
The microswitches are likely the best alternative, but I could just see me breaking them one way or another. I figured these might last a little longer and I wouldn’t have to be so fragile with them. They’re part metal. Don’t cost much more than the others.
This is a function of how mine are set up, but mine have two holes in the microswitch body that mount it to a bracket, so I made a metal bracket that extends up the height of the microswitch body. If it crashes, it’ll crash metal-to-metal rather than smashing the microswitch and then crashing metal-to-metal.
I use these on my CNC Sieg X3 mill. I used microswitches for my CNC router table. I don’t think I would use these on my router table; too bulky.
One trick I used on the microswitches was to mount the switch to a small piece of aluminum plate. The plate was machined with slots holes to mount the whole assembly to the router. Since I was using the microswitches as limit switches on my Y axis with slaved rails, the slots allowed me to to adjust the position of each switch very precisely.
I would highly recommend using microswitches with rollers and position them where part of your axis will trigger the switch by moving past, not directly against the arm of the switch. This will keep you from damaging or moving your microswitches when your axis crash; which will happen from time to time.
Induction switches or other non-contact switches work well for homing. They also work well on a rotary axis. Since the axis can move past that home switch, a micro-switch can be placed as a limit-switch just behind it. If the machine aproaches home too fast, nothing breaks. If it still goes on, it hits the limit switch and e-stops.