I thank everyone for the help! This forum is awesome. I hope one day I can contribute here they way you all have been so willing to do!
If I am understanding this, Mach uses tool X to determine the offset of the other tools. This leads me to ask what I initially enter for tool x and are the other tools, 2, 3, 4 and so on a plus or minus value from the index tool.
Better stated - If I have in tool position 1 a 2" bit and this is my reference tool would it be zero length in the offset table and if tool 2 was a 1" bit would it be -1" and lastly if tool 3 was a 3" bit would it be +1 in the tool table.
Just to let you know a little about me and the machine I am trying to get this working on, I fabricate CNC routers - well, more precisely I design the machines (the frame, gentry, motor mounts and other mechanical components) and am know to be one of those engineers that like to run the parts I design So I do run mills, lathes, routers and weld.
The machine in question is a 60x120 wood/aluminum/plastic flatbed router that, at least according to the equipment we have, is accurate to +/- 0.0006 per 2000mm, uses C1/C2 grade linear motion components, dual 110mm frame 1.8Kw servos for X, single 110mm 1.3Kw servo for the Y, single 1Kw Z , harmonic gear reduction and very precise proximity sensors. Not bad for a wood router I suppose... I will say I spent a fortune on the drive and linear motion components on this one and this is my personal machine. Saved a long time to afford this and am excited to have built one from the ground up myself. I never imagined tool offsets would be the death of me - lol.
I recently switched from a different control systems to Mach (I really like Mach better than the commercial over-priced systems) but the ATC is giving me a heck of a time due to tool lengths. The way the systems I am familiar with handle offsets, as far as the end-user is concerned, are very different than Mach (or I am just not as knowledgable in the back-end of how this is done - either way it is different to me).
I am very comfortable with machine coordinate mode vs. work offsets and have a (mostly) functional tool carousel tool changer with a very precise fixed Z touch-off sensor. Additionally, all tools are set with a tool setter -as garyhlucas has stated, I am one of those that are having "trouble wrapping my mind around" the way mach does it.
What I am having to do now after a tool change is re-zero the Z each time a tool change is called and I should not have to do this if I can figure out tool length offsets.
You all here have given me great information and I will try, using the above, to figure this out. I am kind of understanding how Mach handles the tool lengths I think - If someone would be so kind as to confirm that my example above is the right logic I will give it a go.
Thank you again everyone - I greatly appreciate all the answers; they have been very helpful.