I was going to build an simple electronic tool setter for a lathe by just isolating a machined rod mounted in a the chuck and having the tool tips slow contact the rod completing a circuit and setting a X and Z location. After testing some of my tooling I found out that this won't work for everything as some of my coated inserts are non-conductive. Bummer. Anyway around this problem?
For milling tooling I can just use a switch since the tool's location only is needed in one axis, this won't work for X on a lathe.