Auto Z touch plate troubles
Hi guys. I am very new to all this, so please bear with me here. :-)
I am running CNC Router Parts/AVID CNC's version of Mach 4.
I also have their Auto Z and Corner Finding Touch Plate: https://www.avidcnc.com/auto-z-and-c...fk1n1brtkbpf61
I am cutting some simple shapes in a piece of 2x6 as my first project. I designed the project in Ventric VCarve Desktop Pro.
I set the Z zero for the surface of the material in VCarve Pro.
Next I placed the AVID touch plate on the front left corner piece of wood with the raised x and y corner edges down. (One side has these edges to fit on your wood, the other side is flat).
And yes, I did attach the magnet to the router bit.
I ran the auto z program in Mach 4. It touched the top of the plate and stopped, then retracted. It then touched the x and y edges
of the touch plate and stopped. Looking good.
But when I ran the g code program the bit was too high and it never touched the wood. It just air cut the shapes.
It seemed to be too high by the thickness of the touch plate. In other words, the software seems to be seeing the top of the touch plate
as the surface, not the actual surface of the wood below.
Do I need to measure the thickness of the touch plate and enter this value in an offset menu or something?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am so close to actually routering something for the first time!
Thank you.
Redcedar
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When you set things up in V-Carve, make sure you set the Z zero to the top of the material. It sounds like you may have the machine bed selected as the Z zero plane. This will result in an offset of the thickness of your material. That could be the issue.
Best regards,
Ahren
Originally Posted by Redcedar
Re: Auto Z touch plate troubles
Thank you.
Yes I have set the Z zero for the surface of the material.
I am unclear how the touch plate can accurately reflect the surface of the material when it is positioned above the material.
Does the Mach 4 deduct the height of the touch plate surface?
Re: Auto Z touch plate troubles
General principle of touch plates is to supply the thickness of the touch plate to the Auto Z software as a offset.
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I am having the same issue. In my case i checked my vcarve settings in both the drawing and tool path modes and confirmed i am setup for top of surface. So that isn't my issue. I stopped my air cut and measured my gap which looks to be .80 inches. But the dro in Mach 4 reads I am at -.020" which would mean it thinks I'm cutting into the material. I checked my probe advanced settings and all looks well there as far as I can tell. I have issues with Mach 4 not retracting after the probe some of the time and sometimes it is retracting but not zeroing the dro. And then if I close and reopen Mach 4 re-home the machine and repeat the whole process, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not, but still when I run my gcode I'm getting air cuts. If I forget about the touch plate and manually zero off the surface the machine cuts correctly. Pretty sure its an issue in Mach 4 with the touch plate. A few times the probe did not stop when it hit the plate until the spring bottomed out completely. So far it hasn't broke a bit but its scary and not too good for my touch plate. I have a support call in now for this issue with Avid. Maybe the mach 4 is corrupt, it worked correctly for a few days prior to this issue occurring. Its a brand new machine so its kind of frustrating but it could be me doing something wrong I suppose.
Re: Auto Z touch plate troubles
Hmmm. That is strange. I have an AVID 2448 Std setup and just added their touch plate recently (Mach4 too). I have not had even the slightest issue and in fact been thrilled with it compared to my old setup that I threw together. Have you looked at the settings in Mach4 for the plate? Are you using the AVID sceens? The plate thickness doesn't matter. It is the distance from the top of the plate to the bottom (or the top of your work in other words). I am not in the shop, but that thickness is assumed to be an inch I believe? That should never change. That could be something that could make the machine think it was not where it should be. Just a thought. Sorry for your trouble. I know how frustrating these things can be! Good luck with it. You'll get it worked out. Let us know what you figure out.
Tony
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