Suggestions for digital Depth Gauge? Mach3 Z setups. . .

[countryguy]

Morning all! TGIF. I am busy setting up my new CNC setup on a used setup. I have Mach3. I have the Mach3 setups inputs & Limit's and homes getting sorted out. I'm busy reading and re-reading non-stop but wanted to ask about a cool Vid I saw here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=nriyza5ZySs Anyone have something similar they like? I see some pretty cheap caliper styles on Amazon for $40 or so. My budget anyway.

The core of this video is the part where I'm actually stuck now anyway - The video seems to make short work of setting up the "offsets" page in Mach3. This sheet is very new to me.
I confirmed my setup does have this page and it seems to work. I run a CNC plasma table and 2D is quick and painless comparted to the 3D 3 & 4 axis setups. Just a new way of thinking. So at this point I am simply trying to have a CAM2Gcode sample-part in Mach3 and get the X,Y,Z home and min/max setups work correctly when I hut RUN w/ just the steppers firing and moving the table around. Seems so easy.... Back to Chapter 7 in the Mach 3 guide and some more Vids. ;-) Peace and enjoy the weekend all! CG

 

[DaveSohlstrom]

I have the same tool setter from Enco. works good. In the video he is working with non metalic part so he has to attach the base of the setter to the machine so the end mill completes the circuit when it touches the top of the setter . He then sets Z0.
If you are using master tool mode you can use this tool to set your TLO (tool length offset) for each of the tools you will use for the job. One thing that cought me off guard is your Gcode has to read.

T? M6
G43 H?

where T? is the tool number and H? is the TLO number and generally is the same as the T number.

T2 M6
G43 H2

One of the things I did on my CNC mills was buy a copy of Mach Standard Mill screen set. It is much better than standard mach3 screen set.

http://www.calypsoventures.com/home.html

You can try them for free.

Dave