Touch Plate

X-Carve Upgrades
42

Anything Robert post, worked for me. I think you insert to A4 which 5th hole. Easy to make mistake because starts from A0. Basically the last hole for probe, and one of ground pin outs from other set.

43

Nope, it’s A5, the 6th hole:

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44

I just got my touch plate wired up last night. I used leftovers from the xcarve assembly and a 1/8" piece of aluminum from home depot. It works awesome

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45

OK, I am totally in the wrong place!

I am using the “5v” and “ground” in the “Power” bank of pins.

Hopefully I did not let the smoke out of anything…

46

the a5 pin is the probing pin for grbl. youll need to use it to get it to work

47

Ding flabber I love this forum!

Made the changes tothe pin locations entered the gcode into the macros after figuring it out that it’s Gzero and not G’“O” calculated the thickness of the touchplate and entered thos values and
WHIZ BANG! it works.

Thanks for the guidance everyone and thank you @CharleyThomas for posting the vid with the gcode.

Joe

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48

Just feel the need to bump this old thread – I finally got around to doing this yesterday. Got a 1/8" thick piece of aluminum from Lowe’s for a few bucks, wired it up to the Arduino and connected an alligator clip to ground following the directions above.

This is, without a single doubt, the best bang for the buck upgrade I’ve done to my X-Carve. It’s honestly not even close. This has changed the quality of my carves and has reduced my frustration immensely.

Highly recommend this upgrade to everyone. It’s super easy and makes a huge difference.

Thanks so much, @CharleyThomas for the video and detailed directions. Made the whole process super easy and gave me an excuse to dip my toes into learning a little GCode.

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49

By far this is the very best method for setting your Z zero and is a life saver when doing tool changes between cuts. I have used one since I bought my Shapeoko 2 and it has really allowed me to mill some great work with little effort when a number of end mills is needed for each item. I am glad to see it has been made even easier now in Chilipeppr and that more folks are using it.

50

This is on my list of upgrades also, I have all the parts just not the time to do it. My question is - what is the best way to zero a V-bit? I would think if you put the point on the corner of your work piece you wouldn’t be able to use a touch plate to zero it out, would this be correct? Just wondering.

51

Two options that I can see, but I’m new at this.

  1. If your work piece is flat, you could hold the plate flat against it and have it extend over the edge.
  2. You could jog in a little from the corner to zero Z and then jog back out for X and Y.
52

Method 2 is how it is done.

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53

I’ve had the touch plate I ordered from Amazon sitting on my desk for weeks and weeks now. I really need to get around to hooking it up!

54

once you do, you will kick yourself for not doing it far sooner. It really is a game changer if your projects involve using more than one end mill in the project. Really makes getting a true Z Zero far easier.

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55

Just ordered this one on ebay for $9.53 (free shipping)

56

Damn…that’s the same one I got but I paid twice as much! SMH

57

When you do home zero, machine puts X and Y values to memory, if you jog it to work surface anywhere with keyboard or arrow keys, you can do Z zero, then you’re done. You don’t have to take it back. As soon as you send Gcode, it goes to XY zero corner first and return back to work. Very simple. Of course if you don’t move or force it by pushing with hand. Just use jog keys.

60

File didn’t upload Charley. Still on Uploading statement.

61

I noticed that, wonder if it is because it is a macro enabled spreadsheet?

62

I think Server restrictions. You may want to try zip it first.

63

Here is a spreadsheet that will generate G code to use for zeroing all three axis. It is a Macro enabled excel spreadsheet so you will have to enable macros for it to work. That was the only way I could get it to create the g codes. All you have to do is enter the diameter of your bit and the thickness of your touch plate and the spreadsheet will generate the proper g code. I also include some rather crude but hopefully helpful wiring diagram for wiring things up. I hope this helps people who are not too sure about this.

Zeroing.zip (428.2 KB)

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