EMERGENCY STOP needed for 'Homing' etc for user safety and to prevent printer damage

I've found that after a modification, repair or adjustment, if 'Homing' starts to screw up, eg. some part of the printer jams or hits the end-stop and goes beyond them, then there is no way to stop homing IMMEDIATELY other than to switch off at the mains switch (if you're lucky enough to have one on the side of your machine!) or run to the outlet and pull the plug.

For USER SAFETY, no process should shut out the user or be impossible to stop part-way through using the control-panel on the machine.

I've had a few occasions when the bed has slammed to the limit on the Y axis of my homemade i3-clone and the belt starts stretching skipping over teeth and pressing the knob on my RepRapDiscount Full Graphic Smart Controller doesn't IMMEDIATELY stop the homing process, as you'd expect, nor does pressing the RESET button IMMEDIATELY stop the motors or printer either... and it only stops about 5 seconds after I hit the power switch and cut the power, which I couldn't do if my hand was trapped or something like that.

For safety, and to make the firmware far more professional, these processes MUST be able to be killed by the controls on the control panel.

So...
  • Shouldn't the reset button be on an interrupt or something in the software and OVERRIDE whatever process is happening?
  • In the loops where the Homing process takes place in the firmware shouldn't it be checking for the control button being pressed and using it to ABORT the Homing?

That would be a handy SAFETY feature of the firmware, acting like a BIG RED STOP BUTTON on professional equipment, preventing injury or damage to the machine if the operator sees something bad starting to happen.,,, just like every other piece of equipment in my workshop.

Comments

  • Sorry! Should have posted this to FIRMWARE/FeatureRequests.
    My mistake. :#
  • Hardware reset works immediately. The ui also has a kill action that would act with similar speed. But you need a button wired to one of these to be fast, preferrably reset button, have so far not noticed a lag in reaction on hardware reset.
  • I learnt a long time ago,,,, Use all 6 Limit Switches
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