Alternatives to Limit Switches

[HalfNormal]

Over on the Shapeoko forum there are some great discussions on this subject. Here is one of many that can be found there on Hall Effect switches;

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LimitTest

[JeremyJohnstone]

Hall effect sensors seem like a pretty good solution!

[ErikJenkins]

I am using rare earth magnets hot glued to the makerslide for my hall effect sensors.

I adjusted mine by shifting the sensor a bit…the hot glue can be popped off with a blade and reglued very easily.

[ErikJenkins]

Here is a quick video of me homing the machine…all I have now.

It's Alive

Yesterday I removed my mechanical homing/limit switches as I started getting noise like several others. I replaced the homing switches with hall effect limit switches. I purchased 5 of them from: These switches have 3 connections instead of the 2 on the mechanical ones. 1 goes to the Arduino Ground, 1 to the Arduino +5 volts and the third to the appropriate pin just like the mechanical switches. There are 2 LEDs to indicate the state, tripped or not, red and green. I have run the homing …

[ErikJenkins]

For the X and Y axis I mounted the sensors to the makerslides with the magnets mounted to gantry plates. On the Z-Axis, I had no room to mount the sensor on top, so it is on the moving part of my Z-Axis with the magnet mounted on top. My Z-Axis is no longer the standard X-Carve axis.