I have been using my big lathe for a few months now on a pretty regular basis with Mach3 . I am controlling the 30hp spindle motor thru a VFD from AD, With much help from HOOD the 12 station tool changer is working perfectly with a PLC from AD communicating with MODBUS . I am having no problems with 800IPM rapids with 2kw brushless servos and thanks to the smooth stepper (and chaoticone) I finaly have threading all ironed out .

Since the machine has been running perfectly for months I feel its time to screw things up again by tackling the project of getting the tool setting probe working and at some point getting the work setting probe up and running.

The tool setting probe is from Renishaw, which as complicated as it appears to be with tons of wire and control box just has two out put wires to signal when the connection in the switch in the probe is broken . What appears needs to happen is an air cylinder needs to be activated by energizingthe coil in the soleniod which will open a door above the chuck and send the probe out to a fixed, known position .

At that point I am guessing a tool will be called out and a routine needs to be run where the tool will slowly approch the end of probe until contact is made , the offset for that direction needs to be entered in the tool library , then it should back off and slowly aproach the side of the probe and the offset for that direction entered in the tool library  

any thoghts , help or guidance greatly appreciated

The operating of the positioning will be easy enough, just need to hook things up to the PLC and add to the ladder to operate from ModInputs (ModOuts from MACH)
 If you do a search for tool setting you should find a few macros that people are using.

Would be interested to see the way the probe is set up as I am contemplating making one up for my lathe in the future so if you have any pics please post.
Hood

I'll snap a few pic tommorow and post

Hi Hood, took me a few days to take the pics ,  hope some of these help

I havent had very much luck finding info on setting this up but here is a rundown on what needs to happen

The door right above the chuck is opened by an air cylinder that has a magnetic prox sensor at each end of its travel  . The signal needs to be sent to open the solenoid and allow the door to open and once a signal is present telling the plc the door is open a signal is sent to the second solenoid which acuates the large cylinder pushing the probe out thru the opening above the chuck , it has a D shaped rod so it cant rotate and bottoms out in the extended position , barely clearing the 12" chuck in the pic.  Once it reaches the end of its stroke it sends a signal which allows the rest of the process .
I need it to rotate to the tool called out and then aproach the tool setter from the two directions and enter the offset info in the tool table .

Once the tool is set the signal to retract the tool setter needs to be sent and when the pickup senses the tool setter has returned home it can then close the door.

I think I have a decent enough understanding of the PLC to read the 4 sensors in the air cylinders and control the solenoid but the rest of the setup is beyond me .

Thanks for the pics, not quite sure where the tool contacts but it does give me some ideas.

As for the macro to work it you could search for toolset  macro here and I am sure you will come up with something that you could adapt.
Hood

here is a close up pic of the probe, the tool contacts the square carbide block right in the middle of this pic .

another aproach thats common is for the probe to be on an arm that pivots above the chuck . The ones I have seen are just a piece of steel tubing thats hinged and you swing it down by hand into a fixed, known position  . Touch off the tools and then when your done you swing the arm up out of the way