Selecting The Right Limit Switch from AutomationDirect

Switches for object detection are incredibly versatile. You can get them with all kinds of doo-dads, rollers, springs, wands, arms, plungers, etc - and most industrial switches can be reconfigured. On this guy for example, you can change the length of the arm, the starting position of the arm and even rotate the head to 4 different positions. Be careful the head is usually spring loaded Mechanical switches are available in all kinds of shapes and sizes, low medium and heavy duty grades, and in materials from plastic to stainless steel for full wash down applications. Just pick the one that fits your needs, wire it up to the PLC and you're good to go. The biggest drawback with mechanical switches is they have moving parts so they can wear out over time. So you really want to use mechanical switches in applications where they won't be activated often. Cabinet door openings, gate lifting, machine over travel limits, things like that. That should be enough to get you started with simple switches. Check out the live demo How To videos to learn how to connect these to a PLC and then program the PLC to use them. If you have any questions about industrial switches, please don't hesitate to call Automation Directs free award winning tech support during regular business hours. They will be happy to help. And don't forget the forums there are lots of folks there that love to share their years of experience. Just don't post any support questions there. Automation Directs tech support doesn't monitor the forums on a regular basis.

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Hi there everybody. I have a question for those that have installed the limit switch kit. Do you feel it adds or detracts from the functionality and usability of the table. I received mine back around thanksgiving. I had plans to raise my stanchion brackets so I waited to install limit switches so I wouldn’t accidentally break them. Then I started hearing problems regarding the switches so I settled into a lull of if it isnt broken don’t fix it. I am now wondering if all the growing pains are worked out and if the general consensus is to use them or forego them?

We personally like them. With the soft limits set there is no longer a possibility of crashing the X/Y axis. (Either by jogging or programming mistake.) It has required taking the time to machine home when we start Firecontrol, but that’s a minor item. As far as problems, none seen so far. (Firmware 1.3ls)

The missing piece with this machine IMO. The ability to home then set a work zero and have the machine jog to that point is a huge upgrade to my operations. This should make index cuts much easier, but I haven’t got that far yet.
Very happy so far!

I just ordered mine a week or so ago, my main use is going to be to make index cuts a bit easier. From what I’ve been reading it seems like most issues have been ironed out.

Definitely interested in hearing opinions of those who are running it

I use a whole lot of the table travel as well, but I think I can deal with the very small incursions to the usable table area they impede. my hesitation is i have a pretty dang smoothly operating system and I don’t want to do any software changes that throw a monkey wrench into my work processes when I’m really counting on the table working properly.

yea I make the most of the cuttable area, but if it makes indexing easier then that gives you infinite cutting space. Thats the way i’ve been looking at it lol. Altho i’ll still need to set an indexing jig for the table corner

If you are looking for more details, kindly visit limit swith.

I made a video doing indexing and it worked really well even without the limit switches. Initially thats why I purchased them but they did not arrive in time so I just manually did it. Not only did my index jig work great for that project but it makes is so quick to get to work on any other project having a nice square side to just align the metal to super quickly. I broke it into two parts software side and table mechanics.

just curious - has anyone ever tested the ACCURACY of the limit switches ability to "Home your machine to Machine Coordinate Zero and run programs using Work Coordinate Offsets. "

Or maybe a better qualifier is repeatability/variance ?

I mean limit switches are always good it prevents the gantry from crashing into the frame. Although honestly they are fairly cheap and the kit only provides two spread across x and y axis. The idea is to zero off one side and use the limit switches for the other. But that’s not really best practice because if the encoder misreads machine position to your home zero it might still over travel and crash.

I feel kind of dumb. I have been looking up index cutting for a couple of weeks now that I want to attempt my first one soon. I have been YouTube, this forum, etc. searched high and low(most of the stuff I have found is a couple of years old). I keep seeing things about building jigs and all these complicated ways of setting up an index cut from Fusion 360 to Fire control(at this point I feel I have over complicated it).

Then I come across this post and realize I have limited switches and I guess I dont need to build a jig for index cutting?

Very new at this fabrication stuff so a lot of the terminology really throws me off sometimes.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Plunger Limit Switch.