Setting limits on a Cincinnati mill with Acromatic 950 controls

Posted this in the Cincinnati forum and it was suggested I post it here instead:

Trying to set up a new (to my shop at least, bought used) mill. I'm not used to the Cincinnati way of doing things, so any help would be appreciated. It seems as though you can set a machine limit through the controls, but when I follow the manual's instructions, it doesn't seem to work the way I'm expecting it to work. I'm used to the Okuma way of doing things, meaning the machine has hard limits, and you set up soft limits inside those so that any time you are using the jog or hand wheel or program, it won't travel past the point you set. I'm trying to figure out how to do that on the Cincinnati.

Following the part of the manual I thought would do this, I go into MACHINE SETUP, press the SELECT touch target, press the LIMITS touch target. That shows me a limit screen with two tables: The table on the left says MACHINE with both LOW and HIGH LIMIT values. The table on the right says FORBIDDEN ZONE and currently has no values at all (not even zeros, literally blank screen). Now, from this screen the manual says to change the limits I need to press the ACCESS touch target>SERVICE touch target>AXIS DEF touch target. This brings me to a screen with another table. Here's where it get's confusing to me. The screen says AXIS DEFINITION AREA but the column headers read: ALIGNMENT POINT 1, ALIGNMENT TRIM 1, ALIGNMENT POINT 2, ALIGNMENT TRIM 2. None of these numbers match any of the numbers from the first screen I described. However, the manual says I can modify this table and when I go back to the first screen, "the change made will now be displayed in the LIMIT field." It's not. MACHINE table is unchanged as well as FORBIDDEN ZONE table still being completely blank. However, when I turn the machine off and realign, it will align at the position I entered. Once aligned, it will then try to rapid to its machine limit, overtraveling the machine.

I'm obviously missing something, I just don't know what. I've read through all the parts of the manual I can find that discuss limits and nothing else seems to even come close to doing what I want. Like I said, any help is appreciated and any questions will be answered fairly promptly (I have instant email notifications to this thread turned on.)

I ran a horizontal with a similar control

The alignment trim numbers are to set the zero's for the machine. They were small numbers (couple thou, around .800 for the B axis)

I used the forbidden numbers to prevent the tool from hitting the table, the machine simply wouldnt let you.

I have only basic knowledge of the control but was familiar with setting the trim as it was done after any crashes or service. When this was done there was a servo set button and then the machine had to be E-stopped and shut all the way down before starting it back up to check trim again

Sorry this isnt much help.

Thank you. Sheds some light on trim/forbidden. Still trying to figure out how to set any of these though.