Z or autofocus options

Ok I started this a while back then my 90 year old parents started needing full time care so my life went in hold.

Anyway I’m trying to finish hooking up my autofocus. On YouTube there’s this guy who has made tons of videos for using the old ruida software he says that the red pen thing isn’t very accurate. Makes sense. I’ve taken one apart. It looks like the red pen is a proximity sensor and as the pointer depresses it moves a flatpiece of aluminum toward the sensor. I think suposidly there’s a couple mm of play I that.
That same guy has installed a standard mini limit switch under his bed and says that’s a huge improvement. I’ve seen several YouTube videos with standard proximity sensor in different locations used for auto focus. Weather it’s the red pen, or micro switch or proximity sensor there are 3 wires. Black, blue, and brown I think.
I for now have just connected a proximity sensor to mine. When it gets within 4 mm of metal and LED lights up.
When I pressed the autofocus button on my ruida 6442, the table just keeps going. I’ve crashed it to the bottom twice. I know nothing about the actual settings. There is a reverse polarity button, I’d really like to use either the product sensor or mini switch under the bed. Anybody got any more than that. I’m going to keep experimenting.

There’s one more possible option,
When I got my stepper motor replacing the DC motor I purchased a hybrid stepper. It has a set of wires feeding back data to the driver. On one test I pressed the button to home or zero XYZ ty bed send down quickly, then slowed then stopped.
My question has anyone tried the hybrid stepper and just zero the bed then since the driver should remember where zero is, wouldn’t that work best? And be the most accurate? Again I’m going to experiment if I figure it out , I’ll post something otherwise I’ll keep checking back. Thanks markm

Also on my ruida 6442 when I click on find current locations my x and y say 0 my z always starts at 3000 and my U at 8000 U is for rotary. Would like to zero all.

Sounds like that new stepper is trying to be more like a servo, with at least pulse info to keep track of how far it has gone. How many extra wires? 2 or more?

Will be interesting to see reply’s to this topic. I’ve been wanting to do this for some time now.

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