Auto Tool Zero in Mach 3

Using the auto tool zero feature in Mach 3. I built an aluminum touch-off block, wired it to an open input, and explain how to setup Mach 3 to function.

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Closed Caption:

I in this video I'd like to show you how
to auto set your
on your cnc router you need some kind of
touch off block this case i'm seeing one
out of the little aluminum suspension a
quarter thick at the bottom here half
inch on the top it's got a couple of
brass rods that go and brawn sleeves
there see the spring in the center on
the bottom here you get a counter bore
hole with a screw in it which threads
into this top plate only two through
hole in the bottom which allows it to
slide since up and down
it also allows you to turn the screw and
set the overall height of this block
so basically put a caliper on here turn
the screw and I can set this to exactly
2 inches
that's how i set mine up to be got a
hole on the side here made up a special
cord on the side here
banana plug just plug straight into a
round hole just kind of a nice easy plug
nice removable on the other side
standard RCA mounted on RCA jack my
router slip that in there
now what you do is get your tool block
back on video just underneath the router
bit
you always want to jog
your router close to the plate somewhere
in the center
it only has to be within an inch but
it's gonna travel down very slowly so
usually set it you know kind of closer
half inch quarter and something like
that just somewhere above the plate and
bring over the computer to show you how
that works
you've got a auto tools 0 button on mach
3 i'll show you how all this works in a
second because you've got to install
this to make it work but i'll show you
how mine works i'll click this in the
back over the router
you see it touched off the block an
electrical contact new the height was
set at two inches for the block
thickness and then retracted back to an
absolute 3 inch to one inch incremental
up from where it was and that's it
my tools 20 it's about three inches off
the table right now back on the screen
it's easy 3.0 now to make this work
there's a couple of things first of all
the way that this works is you have to
use an input from your breakout board as
a pro taking over here and show you my
electrical cabinet
there's my input output boards and
realizing things this is from CMC NC .
com
it is this input right on the right
this green cord in this little red one
the green runs just the Machine grounds
actually ground to the frame frame steal
the red wire
runs up to the parallel port on the back
here all the energy chaining up around
out through the final
z energy change for this loom and a
support right on the front now in your
RCA plug the center pin is what i'm
using the outside would normally be
ground and I certainly don't want those
to touch inside the wire so i stripped
back inside the wire
that's why this piece of junk down here
the outside connectors to make sure they
don't touch together
you put the you made the outside of the
center connect then you just closed your
circuit a normal function
so basically it just goes in there like
that same on the other side this is
basically now be the positive side of my
switch is connected with our senior year
so this becomes a positive side of the
switch the machine itself including the
router better ground
so now basically what you've got is your
your ground and your boss when you bring
them together
you just completed the circuits now the
machine that's the input and nose knows
what to do to make that work
go up into my configuration reports and
pens input signals down here should have
a pro now a few things here
you gotta make sure your probes act of
course enabled it's active low and your
port and pin need to be set
finding which pen it is can sometimes be
a problem but there's a help for that in
Mach 3
they have this automated automated set
of inputs you click that you choose
which input you're looking for this drop
down
the probe switch on here will click that
one auto step see what it says searching
for signal activation is waiting for the
switch to be closed
so what we're going to do this come here
and include the switch by touching it
now you'll see a signal set to port 1 10
13 and say okay now i have to show you
on here
I know for a fact that my port number is
a 1013 is right port one is not right
not sure what it doesn't work but
basically come here and all
make it eight like 830 now you know
which pin you're on and say okay we
gotta reset the configuration change
he said and now I'll show you how to
make the auto tool 0 button work up at
the top here under operator at a button
script and see what happens is it
flashes the buttons that you can edit -
this one but you got the auto tools 0
click that and when you first open this
you probably just have a single line up
here saying something like but not
enabled and nothing under an oak Oh
doesn't do anything
mark doesn't come with this preset so
basically take the code which i'll post
under this video or a link on my website
at www.irs.gov tation com
you can just a copy the code and paste
it in this button over everything and
you close it out
save the changes yes
that's it and i'll show you the other
side of this on the offset and probing
tab up here like when you first get
mach3 comes with it just as offsets here
I actually installed show it on the
screen set
I found on cnc zone haas probe code
that's what it was called which gave me
this
probing screen set now this is nice it
does have the the tool touch off see
them at places like set to 2 inches on
the plate thickness
you've also got a centering routine for
finding the center of a circle or
touching of corners on a rectangle or
however you need it
I probably works great if your machine
model you're touching a metal tool or
you know prior to probe off to your work
piece of wood since I don't have to
probe the router that doesn't make
electrical contact with the with the
woods it doesn't really do me any good
at what I do use that was plate
thickness two inches and what I found
that my z0n routine from haas did not
function on my router properly and I
wasn't able to edit the code on here
which is why I went through and did it
on the main screen on that auto tools 0
button to show you one other thing on
there
edit the button script again tool
right here
so I've got plate thickness in here that
comes from that house offset tab if you
don't use that screen set which if
you're not going to touch off circles i
don't think you need to you can just set
your plate thickness right in here
inside the button with a hard number
rather than using that changes
yep and that's just how simple it is to
do so i hope you found this video useful
for you if you run into any problems
questions feel free to email me check my
website rh fabrication com
there's a lot more information on the
build of how i made the the touch off
block and just kind of a general
overview of what we discussed here but
thanks for watching see you next time