More Joys of Touch Probes

[HimyKabibble]

Today I did the first real work since getting my touch probes and macros all going. What a difference! I always hated edge finding, truning vises and fixtures, and setting tool length. Now they're all quick, and completely painless. I bolted down my vise, and within about 90 seconds, had it trued to within 0.0003" over 8.5", and had X and Y zeroed to the left front corner of the rear jaw at the same time. Toolchanges (there were many) were quick and painless, taking only about 10-15 seconds each to precisely reset the Z axis after each one. Even a computer crash was triviall to recover from, by resetting to the work, without even bothering to home the machine!

What a time-saver! Anyone who has a CNC machine and *hasn't* done this, should drop whatever they're doing, and go make the probes. They are wonderful time savers!

Regards,
Ray L.

[escott76]

Have a link to which "the probes" you are specifically referring to? I've seen a couple of different plans for them, but I'm always looking for new ideas. I'm just about ready to start making one.

[HimyKabibble]

Originally Posted by escott76 Have a link to which "the probes" you are specifically referring to? I've seen a couple of different plans for them, but I'm always looking for new ideas. I'm just about ready to start making one.

For the Z touch plate, I'm just using a small piece of copper-clad PCB material from the local electronics shop. For the rest, I took one of these:

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?P...PARTPG=INLMK32

pulled out the guts, and added a wire connected to the tip, and coming out one of the light holes. Cheap, easy, works great.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Hirudin]

I'd like to get a 3/8" electronic edge finder for my Taig. I have a mechanical one, but it's either a POS or I'm not using it correctly (there are usually ~4 thousandths between when the thing spins off axis and on axis).
I've looked a couple times but it seems that all the electronic edge finders are 1/2" shank. Anyone know of one with 3/8"?