Thanks Rich, Thomas,

I see what you offer and it makes sense, I understand how my setup works as it is now, and it works well re tool & probe lengths.

Currently I set my tools offline, I also measured my Haimer probe in the same way - this gives me an easy to grasp correlation from probe to tool height.

On the machine, when I probe the surface for a setup, I position the quill 40mm down from home so Z-40 - this gives me allowance for clearance planes, retract and tool change etc
I then bring the knee up to position the work just below the tip of the probe, then probe using Z jogging.
Next I press Z DRO Zero - this ALSO stores the machine coordinates for my C (knee) axis in a variable because the relationship between C & Z are now fixed at zero.
When i place a tool, my M6end does its magic and sends the difference between tool and probe to the C axis using the stored C variable as a ref and everyone is happy

My brain-cell block is visualising getting this to work with a surface probe (this bit is easy) and also a tool plate.
I'm guessing here that i would just measure my surface probe against the tool plate as i do now??
However this is also complicated by the movable bed(knee) - the knee must be in the same position before any re-probing (breakages, new tool etc) of tooling is done??
 - currently I don't need to worry about that as the zero on my tool-setter does not move, ever.

Once I get that clear in my grey matter, I think screens and macros will be easy (once i figure out how i actually want to work) and just a matter of macro tweaking and testing.
Its just the bit in brown I need to grasp

Hi Dave,

during the retrofit of my TongIl TNV40 (witch is still not finished), i came also to the
probing  / toollength question.

i am trying to explain, how i want to "handle" this, just to give you (maybe) some ideas.

some basic's of the TongIl
-BT40 spindle toolclamp spring loaded and pneumitc tool release
-16 place umbrella toolchanger

i got to the question 16 places, but i have more than 16 Tools?
so i created Screen and script functionality to use the full range of Mach Tooltable,
according to the 16 place TC. means i created a Little database (well it is a Textfile) to
create a relationship between Tools (Mach tooltable) and TC places.
so now i can "book in" a tool to TC place and M6 handles to get the tool from the right
TC place. that gave me the "range" of the full Mach tooltable.

next question BT40 spindle, but i have a lot of SK40 Tools?  
they are principly the same, exept the pick and place height of Z-axis, and a different look pin (lenght).
look pin's are avaliable, so no Problem, but the different pick/place , ok added this Information also
to my "extrenal" datebase some Scripting, done.


next question was how to handle the tool lenght?  
out of your thread i "grabbed" the idea of the tool lenght setter.
so some material laying around ,some Screen work, some VB Scripting later
the tool setter was finished , toollenght is stored automatcly in the Mach tooltable.

next question surface probing?  
i digged out a 3d touch probe (chineese) witch i buyed years ago, did some testing,
tolerance 0.01-0.02mm good enough for what i do.
again some Screen work, some Scripting and it does what i Need.

after all this i recogized, i don't Need a touchplate (or sensor, witch i use on an older machine) to
get the tool lenght.

i write this only to give you some more idea's,
if you want to take some, the coding is no Problem.

Thomas

Nice, and you have a tool changer, i'm jealous

But do you measure tool lengths "on" the machine i.e. tell you want to load tool 10 into the carousel so you fit tool 10, it goes and measures the offset, stores it and then unloads the spindle into the carousel??

I can easily understand the touch probe and have ordered a couple up - one for surface and one for tools. I can use this immediately just by manually setting its height into my T100 location (always the height probe)

What i envision is both this AND having the machine measure tools etc - this is a bit more complex as the knee (and therefore the height probe) zero can move

I'm sure i'll be borrowing some of your ideas

But do you measure tool lengths "on" the machine i.e. tell you want to load tool 10 into the carousel so you fit tool 10, it goes and measures the offset, stores it and then unloads the spindle into the carousel??

that's what i am doing on my older machine, but on the Tongil, i measure them offline with
the function, that the length is written direct into tooltable.

Ok thanks

I'll break it down i think and only do the surface probing first as suggested earlier by you or Rich, makes sense.

The surface probing macros should keep me busy for a while

Consider or think about this:
The master tool , tool #1, has no tool length or offsets.
Tool 0 has no offfsets and you use this to move about or whatever  and you can't have offsets for it.
All tools relate to the master tool,thus, if the master tool has no length then, all the other tools lengths are
just length values +- from the ref location of zero of the master tool. Machine coordinates can be used
to  measure distances.

Now assumming that tool table is populated, if you were to put any tool other than master in the spindle,
and probe using  the knee to touch off to the tool, the original location used to define the ref of zero
for the master tool is the current tools +- length. So move the knee up down accordingly. Your now
back to the how the tool table was originaly populated.

You can have additional DRO's, buttons, etc  with scripting to do whatever you want to address different
cases.

Again it all depends on how you do work, accuracy is only as accurate as you machines system,
and "all tools ( whatever they actualy are) are related to the master tool and they relate to each other".

Typical repeatable tasks would be:
- Populate the tool table initialy
- Modify the tool table for a new or  replaced  tool, tweak a current tool for machining

Then
- Find where the material is to set a work offset

Sometimes
- measuring, whetever

KISS applies to it all!


FWIW,

RICH

Thanks Rich.

I think KISS only applies here if the pattern falls into place and the lightbulb turns on I'm still struggling to see the pattern and I think my bulb has blown.

I have never "touched off" a tool since going CNC, not sure if that matters or not just FWIW.

If the master tool has no length how do the other tools lengths relate to it?

I am only going towards XYZ surface probing now, I will keep my off-line tool setter going and put CNC setting on the back-burner until i get the ATC made maybe.

So, with that in mind, I can simply "measure" my probe in the setter, enter it's length and I'm good to go as that is the same as using my Haimer manual probe, the only difference is that the macro will set my DRO's and not me.

My Haimer has a length, thats why it's T100 not T0 and that length is obtained exactly the same way as all my tools - I can understand the relationship here easily.

If my Haimer was T0 and had no length, my current C axis (TLO) macro would not function, I'm not saying it couldn't function, just that it would not as written.

Maybe i'm missing a vital point?

If the master tool has no length how do the other tools lengths relate to it?

The tool table lists "height (H)" not length. If tool 1 has zero height  then all the other tools ( their tool offsets from the master tool ) is based
on the same reference as the zero for the master tool. The tool offset in Z will be + or -,  or can even be the same.
Each has a specific height.

If you use say, tool 1 with no height and it is where ever, then change to say tool 2 ( has a different tool offset in Z) you will see the Z  DRO
change +  -   by the tool offset value!

Don't get confused with fixture or work offsets.

RICH

The controller keeps track of this for you.

Getting there now

BTW on my setup the Z DRO does not change when tools are changed or called - the File load routine comments out all the G43 H.. lines because they are read direct from my tool table and sent to knee not the Z axis. It works very well in practice and means i keep 100% of my quill travel.

As far as Mach3 and the Z axis are concerned ALL my tools are 100% the same length

i think it doesnt matter.

in a "Standard" machine the G43HX handles the tool length differeces internaly.

in your case the M6End handles it with the knee, so at the end not difference.