been using a Mach 3 CNC for about a year
have had my longmill for a week. Cut a swimming croc , Some clamps and a seed planting template
Yes I know with a little time these things will become obvious but I would like to short circuit the making of firewood as much as possible so I am asking for a little guidance
Trying to understand the different STOP options
It looks like when I hit the OPPS button everything stops and I lose Z Zero but not X, Y zero
If I hit the STOP command the X<Y<Z movement stops but I see the display of the bit movement continuing . Strange
Pause seems to stop the movement yet keeps all the zeros intact. I cant at that point seem to manually move the X<Y<Z to correct anything . so other that wanting to take a break or a fixture adjustment not sure how thats helping me
Then theres the Red X in the X<Y<Z movement tree
Can someone explain.
many thanks for responses
This is my understanding/experience of the various stop options.
The physical stop button halts the machine immediately but gSender keeps sending commands and the Arduino has power from the USB port so it “thinks” it’s moving the machine and all zeroes could be lost depending on what moves happen before you hit the software stop to stop sending commands.
The software stop button does not lose zero’s for me but may not stop as quickly, I see the bit move some in the viewer after hitting it. Maybe it has to finish the current command or part of it in order to not lose zeroes. I’m not sure on that exactly but it does seem to move some after hitting stop.
The red X in the movement section is just to cancel a long movement. It’s not available when running a job. It might also cancel a “stuck movement”, meaning those occasional reports of hitting move right lets say and the machine just keeps going right past what the movement distance is set to. That’s a hard one to test because I need the machine to mess up to test and my machine is not messing up 
And finally the pause button. Other than having to leave the machine for some reason I don’t see much use for it. How far you are comfortable being away from the machine is maybe personal preference but I’ve seen some videos where things can go South pretty quickly making a fire from friction. With that in mind I tend to watch my machine either sitting in front of it or watching my camera feed.
Michael thank you for taking the time to type all that out.
I will duplicate those instructions then TRY to hardwire them in my brain. .
It gets more difficult with each passing year as I continue to add more and more computer computer controlled equipment and each with its own programming and control language.
“How far you are comfortable being away from the machine is maybe personal preference but I’ve seen some videos where things can go South pretty quickly making a fire from friction. With that in mind I tend to watch my machine either sitting in front of it or watching my camera feed.”
Yes i saw somewhere on here about adding commands to keep the stepper motors on continuously. Have to wonder under that condition and then hitting pause for a good length of time will you damage the steppers or worse cause a fire from an overheated continuously powered but not moving stepper. Curious
I think that’s firmware setting $1 (step idle delay). I have read that they will run hotter and possibly wear out sooner if left energized. If I wanted to keep them energized I would look into adding fans for them to help with that. I don’t see a need to keep them energized though so I have left mine at the stock setting which can be found here by the way. Lots of good info in the Resources section which can be accessed from a link at the top of this forum. Just throwing that out there in case you haven’t found them.