Mounting a limit switch

[j king]

I finally mounted the limit switch on my x axis for my servo power feed.I was afraid that someday I would crash it hitting the table limit so made myself do this.
The problem was that I have my dro scale mounted on the front of the table.The real estate was gone so I went to the rear of the table.I don't lose any travel mounting it back there as it lands in the valley between the vertical knee ways.Thought I would share this.It also gets the cable off the front of the machine too.

[vpt]

Nice! I had hadn't thought of installing mine on the back. But I have yet to buy and install a DRO, any reason not to install the dro on the back?

[j king]

I like the dro on the front.You can't crash it there lol.. You get less chips and coolant-oils at the front of the machines. You are always sweeping chips to the rear so I feel the front is the best.
The dro would have surly hit the knee ways so with a stop mounted you lose y travel.Front mount is open..

Worse yet with a horizontal spindle..lots of stuff behind table...Mounted it to the front too.

[oxford]

Looks good. Only downside I can see on the back of the machine is adjustability of the stops if you actually wanted to use them as stops instead of a last resort table crash. There was one job we did fluting rollers and used the power feed stops to stop at the end of the fluting. These were pretty non critical and was a lot easier than watching dials on the non DRO machine once you had the stops set where you wanted.

[j king]

I thought about making a rail with adjustable stops but got lazy...can always do that in future if I see a real need. Never adjusted the last bp mill I had but have used them on the Cincinnati.

[oxford]

I thought about making a rail with adjustable stops but got lazy....

Don't feel bad about being lazy, I got the switch mounted on mine but never got around to making any stops to trigger it. LOL.

[j king]

Well I remember striping the gear out on the knee power feed at work. Got a new gear and installed it. Ran the knee all the way down and stripped it again.Turns out the limit switch was set backwards! Hit the top of the switch to stop bottom travel. Lol. Not so effective..wasn't mine thank god

[h12721]

You should install the switch so that the stop rides over the switch for activating not against and hit the switch!
HM

[j king]

I don't understand what you mean.the switch pushes against the stop..straight in.do you know how this switch works?im guessing you don't.

[Puckdropper]

If you have a switch that activates after running into a hard stop, the momentum of the table can push that switch too far and cause it to fail prematurely. It's kinda like a guy on a skateboard heading towards a wall. The switch doesn't activate until the guy hits the wall. However, if you have the switch set up so it passes over an object to activate it, the table will have a few milliseconds to slow down and the switch won't be taking a direct hit. It's like a skate boarder skating up a ramp to stop at a platform on the top.

[j king]

I could add a stiff spring to the face of the stop to cushion over travel. The factory stops are just a pin.

[lakeside53]

The servo brand limit switches allow over travel to some degree. High end switches are often a small roller bearing on a micro-switch arm - any amount of over travel is accommodated.