2021 POTD Thread Archive

projectnut said:
Edge finders come in a variety of shank sizes. I have Starrett and no name ones in 3/8", 1/2" and 10MM.

www.travers.com

STARRETT Edge Finders

ApplicationsFor fast accurate work location.FeaturesBody and contacts made of tool steel, hardened, ground and lapped to close tolerances for concentricity.Supplied in plastic pouch.
www.travers.com www.travers.com

www.travers.com

TTC PRODUCTION USA MADE Edge & Center Finders

Superior qualityApplicationsWorks well on round or straight surfaces. A pointed surface may be picked up by rotating the spindle past the point, as in a round piece.FeaturesHardened and ground on all working surfaces.
www.travers.com www.travers.com

www.travers.com

TESA BROWN & SHARPE Edge Finders

BenefitsSingle edge finders allow you to find workpiece edges when performing milling machine work.Dual-function (double) edge finders also finds hole centers.ApplicationsHelps ensure accuracy by making an audible click when the tip jumps.FeaturesHardened and ground on all working surfaces.
www.travers.com www.travers.com

They're some of the least expensive tools you can buy. They usually cost between $15.00 and $35.00 depending on the brand and size.
Click to expand...
Man... I feel so stupid. Because I swear I thought I went to MSC and Amazon and EBay less than a month ago to look for a 1/2 edge finder. I was dumbfounded because I couldn’t believe that they only made these in 3/8”

I must have been having a bad day. Thanks for enlightening me. I’m glad I replied to this post because I have to admit that it just seemed so stupid to me that edge finders were only 3/8”

im the first to admit.... only been doing this hobby for 4 years. I love it. But it’s been a learning curve.
 
I did not know where to put this but i've seen this across the parking lot. It's not the little red car that is the anomaly it's the white GMC denali that sticks out like a white elephant. Can you tell the size diffrence its like 1/4 scale.
IMG_20210225_122236555555.jpg
 
BGHansen said:
I'll shoot a picture tomorrow, but it's essentially a switch that's triggered in X, Y and Z. It mounts in the spindle and has a probe tip like a Haimer 3d taster. Mine has a 1/8" ball on the end.

Tormach's PathPilot software has routines for the probe for finding an edge, corner, surface, center of a pocket and center of a boss that all automatically control machine movement. PP also has probing routines for the 4th axis like finding the center of a round.

It makes edge finding really simple. If I want to zero X and Y on the LH corner of a vise, I position the probe tip about 1/4" off the corner and hit the Find Corner button. PP moves the table in X at 25 ipm until the probe trips, backs off and repeats at I think 2 ipm, then zeros the X axis. Then repeats the process for the Y axis. Lots quicker than manually moving the table, watching for an edge finder to kick, then setting the axis to the radius of the edge finder.

For Z, just position the probe over the work and hit Set Z. The spindle moves down at 25(?) ipm until the probe trips, backs off, repeats at 2 ipm and zeros Z.

On Cnczone, someone posted that they had asked Tormach about the differences between their active and passive probes. The major difference was the >$1000 active probe has switch contacts in non-conductive oil that don't need to be cleaned. The passive probe works the same, but has switches in grease. They say the accuracy is the same between the two.

Bruce
Click to expand...
Looking forward to seeing the picture. Never heard of those.

Regards
 
GoceKU said:
I did not know where to put this but i've seen this across the parking lot. It's not the little red car that is the anomaly it's the white GMC denali that sticks out like a white elephant. Can you tell the size diffrence its like 1/4 scale.
Click to expand...

I sure do notice when I park my 2012 Dodge Ram quad cab (with a snow plow on the front) beside a smart car.
The difference is incredible....

Of course about half the vehicles around here are either pick-up trucks or big SUV's.

-brino
 
tjb said:
Looking forward to seeing the picture. Never heard of those.

Regards
Click to expand...
Hi Terry,

Here you go! My probe is an Econo-probe from Wildhorse Innovations. I bought mine 18 months ago. Others have had problems contacting them recently, I'd contact them first before ordering. If I had it to do over again, I'd look at a Drewtronics (google it) probe instead. The Econo-probe was around $130, Drewtronics are around $250. You'll VERY likely see a What did you Buy Today from me showing off a Drewtronics probe.

The Econo-probe is a PITA to dial in. For set up, you mount the probe in the spindle and touch the probe tip with a DTI. Rotate the spindle and dial in the runout with 3 adjusting set screws. It's a PITA because there are 3 adjustments, not 4 like a 4-jaw chuck. Probably operator error, but it takes me a good ten minutes to get it dialed in to 0.0005". I equate it to sweeping a hole with a DTI but checking at 12 o'clock, 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock instead of 12/3/6/9. I replaced the set screws with cap screws which helped with the adjustment time. It was a real PITA to get an Allen wrench into the 6-32 set screw holes.

20210227_090702.jpg

Tormach's PathPilot has a number of routines that use the probe. First, select tool 99 which is dedicated as the probe. The screen below is for X/Y/Z probing. Let's you find an inside corner, outside corner, edge and Z. The interface is pretty intuitive, the red circle is the probe tip, green is the work. Hit the appropriate button and the machine does the work.

There are also options to find an edge/surface and NOT zero the axis. This would let you find the center of a block pretty quickly. Touch one side and Zero. Whip to the other side and probe to find the edge. Go to the appropriate coordinate and click the mouse. Type "/ 2" to divide the coordinate by 2 which sets Zero at the center.
20210227_090733.jpg

This screen finds the center of a pocket or center of a boss.
20210227_090739.jpg

Probe set-up screen to set the diameter of the tip and length of the tool. I forgot to shoot it, but there is also a screen for setting up the 4th axis. It shows a picture of the 4th with a chuck mounted and a round in the chuck. You position the probe next to the work and hit Find Center. The machine does its thing finding Y (varies Z to find the widest point), rotates the A-axis (rotates the chuck) and checks for runout. Finds the opposite side to set the center. Tormach has this probing routine "hidden" in the SETUP tab. The logic of putting a PROBE routine in SETUP escapes me. Maybe because they figure you're SETUP(ing) the 4th? Seems to make more sense to put all probe routines in the PROBE menu.
20210227_090747.jpg

Here's an example finding X, Y, and Z. In this case, X/Y= 0 is the front LH corner. Position the probe about 1/4" off the corner. Eyeball the Z so the probe will touch the sides with X/Y moves.
20210227_090827.jpg


I manually trip the probe to verify (lit LED) that the probe is working. Otherwise, CRASH/BANG on the probe!
20210227_090836.jpg

PathPilot defaults to the upper LH corner for the probing routine. The CHANGE CORNER button walks around the block to the appropriate corner.
20210227_090944.jpg

Hit FIND CORNER, SET WORK ORIGIN. The machine moves the table at 25 ipm in X until the probe trips, backs off, then repeats at 1.5 ipm for a second touch. The X axis is zero'd at the second touch point (along with auto-compensation for the probe tip diameter). After finding X, it moves back to the original Y position, moves over in X past the edge of the part, and finds Y. When finished, it backs off the probe to the original position.
20210227_091005.jpg

Raise the probe above the work to check Z. I usually go to the MDI screen and type in "G0X0Y0" which rapids the table to X/Y = 0. Then eyeball check that the work coordinates are over the corner.
20210227_091111.jpg

X/Y at 0,0
20210227_091123.jpg

To set Z, move the probe over the work.
20210227_091137.jpg

Press PROBE Z. The spindle drops at 25 ipm until the probe triggers, lifts up, and repeats at 1.5 ipm. Z is set to Zero.
20210227_091149.jpg


Probing goes a lot faster than manually finding the edge with an edge finder. Down side is some potential loss of accuracy since the spindle is not rotating.

A Haimer goes pretty quickly too, but not as quickly as a probe. With a Haimer, I do a similar setup like the probe to find each edge. I jog the table until the Haimer needle starts to move. Two revolutions of the needle to Zero puts the Haimer over that axis. Zero the work coordinate, and repeat on the others. Again, no compensation for spindle runout with a Haimer.

Bruce
 
Last edited:
brino said:
Of course about half the vehicles around here are either pick-up trucks or big SUV's.
Click to expand...
Yeah, here is a car country, no big pickups, only small SUVs and not many of them, when a bigger vehicle is present it sticks out.
 
BGHansen said:
Hi Terry,

Here you go! My probe is an Econo-probe from Wildhorse Innovations. I bought mine 18 months ago. Others have had problems contacting them recently, I'd contact them first before ordering. If I had it to do over again, I'd look at a Drewtronics (google it) probe instead. The Econo-probe was around $130, Drewtronics are around $250. You'll VERY likely see a What did you Buy Today from me showing off a Drewtronics probe.

The Econo-probe is a PITA to dial in. For set up, you mount the probe in the spindle and touch the probe tip with a DTI. Rotate the spindle and dial in the runout with 3 adjusting set screws. It's a PITA because there are 3 adjustments, not 4 like a 4-jaw chuck. Probably operator error, but it takes me a good ten minutes to get it dialed in to 0.0005". I equate it to sweeping a hole with a DTI but checking at 12 o'clock, 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock instead of 12/3/6/9. I replaced the set screws with cap screws which helped with the adjustment time. It was a real PITA to get an Allen wrench into the 6-32 set screw holes.

View attachment 357291

Tormach's PathPilot has a number of routines that use the probe. First, select tool 99 which is dedicated as the probe. The screen below is for X/Y/Z probing. Let's you find an inside corner, outside corner, edge and Z. The interface is pretty intuitive, the red circle is the probe tip, green is the work. Hit the appropriate button and the machine does the work.

There are also options to find an edge/surface and NOT zero the axis. This would let you find the center of a block pretty quickly. Touch one side and Zero. Whip to the other side and probe to find the edge. Go to the appropriate coordinate and click the mouse. Type "/ 2" to divide the coordinate by 2 which sets Zero at the center.
View attachment 357294

This screen finds the center of a pocket or center of a boss.
View attachment 357295

Probe set-up screen to set the diameter of the tip and length of the tool. I forgot to shoot it, but there is also a screen for setting up the 4th axis. It shows a picture of the 4th with a chuck mounted and a round in the chuck. You position the probe next to the work and hit Find Center. The machine does its thing finding Y (varies Z to find the widest point), rotates the A-axis (rotates the chuck) and checks for runout. Finds the opposite side to set the center. Tormach has this probing routine "hidden" in the SETUP tab. The logic of putting a PROBE routine in SETUP escapes me. Maybe because they figure you're SETUP(ing) the 4th? Seems to make more sense to put all probe routines in the PROBE menu.
View attachment 357297

Here's an example finding X, Y, and Z. In this case, X/Y= 0 is the front LH corner. Position the probe about 1/4" off the corner. Eyeball the Z so the probe will touch the sides with X/Y moves.
View attachment 357298


I manually trip the probe to verify (lit LED) that the probe is working. Otherwise, CRASH/BANG on the probe!
View attachment 357299

PathPilot defaults to the upper LH corner for the probing routine. The CHANGE CORNER button walks around the block to the appropriate corner.
View attachment 357300

Hit FIND CORNER, SET WORK ORIGIN. The machine moves the table at 25 ipm in X until the probe trips, backs off, then repeats at 1.5 ipm for a second touch. The X axis is zero'd at the second touch point (along with auto-compensation for the probe tip diameter). After finding X, it moves back to the original Y position, moves over in X past the edge of the part, and finds Y. When finished, it backs off the probe to the original position.
View attachment 357301

Raise the probe above the work to check Z. I usually go to the MDI screen and type in "G0X0Y0" which rapids the table to X/Y = 0. Then eyeball check that the work coordinates are over the corner.
View attachment 357302

X/Y at 0,0
View attachment 357303

To set Z, move the probe over the work.
View attachment 357304

Press PROBE Z. The spindle drops at 25 ipm until the probe triggers, lifts up, and repeats at 1.5 ipm. Z is set to Zero (again automatically compensates for the probe diameter).
View attachment 357305


Probing goes a lot faster than manually finding the edge with an edge finder. Down side is some potential loss of accuracy since the spindle is not rotating.

A Haimer goes pretty quickly too, but not as quickly as a probe. With a Haimer, I do a similar setup like the probe to find each edge. I jog the table until the Haimer needle starts to move. Two revolutions of the needle to Zero puts the Haimer over that axis. Zero the work coordinate, and repeat on the others. Again, no compensation for spindle runout with a Haimer.

Bruce
Click to expand...
Wow, thanks for the write-up, Bruce. Very informative. I've never heard of these before. Sounds like a Drewtronics is the one to look into.

Regards
 
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