homemade 3D touch probe?

[cnczane]

Somewhere I saw it, how to construct your own 3d touch probe, but alas, it's lost in 30 gigs.

This is almost exactly like the one I remember:
http://www.indoor.flyer.co.uk/millingmachine.htm

Anyone seen plans for something like this?

Thanks.

[ger21]

Possibly on the TurboCNC yahoo group? I saw it, but not sure where. And, it was a couple months ago.

[High Seas]

I seem to recall it in the Yahoo - MACH2 forum. Art (the MACH2 Developer) posted some pics. He used a dial indicator and micro switch. I'm setting up to do one in a week-I'll send along thoughts/comments/pics when done.
The big plus is MACH2 takes the input and creates the point cloud. But then you need to dump that into something like Rhino - or??? to convet to a usable data.
Mechanically and electrically, its a pretty straignt forward conversion - I took apart the dial indicator - just need to get the switch before I loose any pieces!
Cheers - Jim

[turmite]

Hey guys, sorry about the hijack, but

This may not be the same thing and I don't know if it has ever been done but I almost bought a ultra-sound digitizer several yrs ago. Price was just a little too high. But...I was watching tv the other night and saw a commerical for a depth/fish finder for the bass fishermen. It had all the bells and whistles. Would it be possible to make something like this work as a digitizer???

Mike

[ger21]

I just checked. TCNC yahoo group, in the files area, look for "Simple Probe".

[cnczane]

Thanks Gerry. Bingo. ("TurboCNC: the $20 that keeps on returning...")

[Graham S]

http://www.indoor.flyer.co.uk/probe.htm

I recently updated my webpage and made a page just about the probe made. It is very similar to the one in the Tcnc files but was not a copy. Some aspects I think are better some are worse. There are also some pics of digitizing in progress on my site.

Cheers,

Graham

[kong]

That is an excellent page Graham, I never realised they could be made so simply. You have certainly tempted me into having a go!

[cnczane]

Graham,

You're the star of this thread since I found your site and the design made me start looking for the one I'd seen before.

Thank you for the updated page: I'm sure it'll get a lot of eyeplay.

Someone mentioned elsewhere taking the output to a Schmitt trigger (which I understand "cleans" up a noisy edge transition (from low-to-high or v.v.).

Have you given any thought to putting it on the backside of the PCB inside the tool and adding a bicolor LED?

Cheers.

[svenakela]

There is also more about probing at the emc-users Sourceforge list and archive. A guy called Dean Hedin has made a module/plugin for EMC to probe a "box" with specified dimensions. I haven't tried it yet myself, my servos's have been very delayed, but I will for sure.

I have access to hi standard CNC grinding machines, so I was thinking of making my probe tool with a 2 or 3 millimeter ball end to get rid of the pressure marks from the probing.

Cheers,
Sven

[Sanghera1]

So, I'm not totally sure how this works. So, is it when the probe is touched, one or more rods lift up from the bearing and breaks the circuit, so the software knows where to put a point in the cloud? I don't see why bearings would be used, wouldn't they roll around and what not? How did you get them placed so nicely, did you mill a little dimple for them? Oh, yeah, and doesn't the sensitivity change the coordinates a bit? I mean, if it takes say 2 mm of the probe to move out of the ball bearings connection, wouldn't that mess up the coordinates a bit??
Thanks.

[Sanghera1]

Also, check this out:
http://thaumaturgy.net/~etgold/scanner/
Enjoy.