Probe supplier?

[Janger]

I came across these guys as promoted by a certain famous canadian knife maker named John what else. https://www.inspectshop.com/product...c-stem-ewl-33-5mm?_pos=1&_sid=1a8681298&_ss=r

That is the probe stylus I need in my machine. Last time I bought one it was $130 CAD, this place it's $66CAD.

@Tom O heard of them? anybody tried them?

J

 

[YYCHM]

What do you use that for?

 

[Janger]

In a CNC machine you need to accurately locate the 0,0,0 x,y,z location of the stock so when you run the program the machine knows where to mill etc. The probe makes this much easier to do. Here is a demo of a cnc keith using one to locate the center of a ring gauge. You can also use probes for part inspection. Probe styli? stylus'? are really easy to break. Drop it. done. hit it, done. ram it into the table, done. skip ahead to about 1:20 to miss the sales pitch.

 

[Janger]

In this part I'm working on the little cartesian vector coordinate marker - the XYZ arrow thing - is located at the top of the part in the middle. That is part zero or 0,0,0 on the part Cartesian coordinates. I set that in the CAM software. Then the CNC machine needs to know where that is on the part relative to the coordinates inside the machine - and the probing helps you to locate that position.

 

[Tom O]

Nice find I’m on my second one too I fired it up the other day to find the probe needed another $55.00 worth of batteries…….you know has it been a year already!
The site is bookmarked and I’ll probably get a couple spares that I hope I’ll never use.
Today my son and I will look at that Microcut lathe Dabbler was talking about so fingers crossed.

 

[gerritv]

I buy my probe tips from AliExpress. Not used this type yet but I would suggest it is worth a try: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001418019586.html

I have a Renishaw TP2 but haven't used it much due to Z height limitations on my machine.

Gerrit

 

[jcdammeyer]

For my JGRO CNC router I use a PC board as a touch plate. I wrote a MACRO for MACH3.

-
response = MsgBox( "Auto Zeroing, Put Ground Clip on Tool bit", 1 )
If IsSuchSignal (22) Then
code "G31 Z-3 F20"
While IsMoving()
Wend
Call SetDRO( 2, 0.0625 )
code "G1 Z1"
While IsMoving()
Wend
response = MsgBox( "Auto Zeroing Complete. Remove Ground Clip", 1 )
End If

Not a lot different than what you can buy from AliExpress or Amazon for under $10. But at the time those weren't available.

At this point, for the milling machine, I use a Fowler Edge Probe for edge detection with my Shumatch DRO-350 and the Find Center function. Then, once at the XY==0 point has been determined I move to that based on the DRO readout and then zero the XY on LinuxCNC. For now I use the LED on the probe to know when I've touched an edge but the plan is to add a wire into the PC to provide the signal for when the edge is found.

I had ordered a tool touch sensor like this one Touch Sensor from China this summer but after a month the sender bailed and I got my money back.

So I'm still undecided on which direction to go.