Charley has made an amazing piece of hardware, but it doesn't (easily) solve 3 things:
- Milling odd shaped stock
- Engraving something like emblems
- Two-sided-milling
Here is an example image:
This is a stock that is 100mm in one end and 101.3 in the other end. The two line you see in the center, is not on the same side. One is on top and the other one is on the bottom. If the stock is acrylic, the two line should have been overlapping each other, but they don't. I could kinda solve it like this:
- Mill out the odd shaped stock so that I have an exact square.
- Make sure that the stock is exactly parallel to the X-axis.
- Make sure that the X-axis is 90 degre angled to the y-axis (using Charleys Y-axis spacer tip).
- When doing the other side, repeat step 1-3.
It might work, but it is a lot of hassle.
Using the camera I drill two holes (on my drill press) in the stock like this:
- Place my stock randomly on my waste board.
- Center x/y on the first hole.
- Move my camera to the second hole moving only the x-axis.
- Ajust the stock so that the camera centers in the second hole, keeping the first hole in place using a 3mm pin (not drilled in the waste board - just holding it by hand).
- Repeat 1-3 on the other side of the stock.
If I'm doing single side, I just use a marker to place two dots (engraving emblems).
One importent thing. I'm also doing this because it is fun and the camera only cost $6 on ebay.
Also - I'm not asking people if they want to use a camera to zero. I'm asking whether or not people what a piece of software to send macros without having to use USG or some other advanced software. Charley is welcome - and I would love to help him - to use/modify the software, so that Easel users can use his Triquetra. My application could be modified to work like his Mach3 script:
- Start my application
- Choose zero Z axis alone or all axis
- Enter endmill size of choose from list.
- Press the go button.
Since I'm relasing it under the MIT license, he can even sell it with the Triquetra without paying me anything 
I the future I would like to upgrade it with autodetection. Using the AForge.NET library, I could let it autodetect a red dot (using a red marker) and auto zero X/Y Why? Because it is fun to do 