how to make best use of my (unused) 3D touch probe? Linux? Arduino? Raspberry Pi? Mach 3?

Please note, I said Y axis, I meant X axis in the last post.... although the Y could maybe be arranged better with the existing parts.

Andy,

Do you have any ebay item numbers or links to the touch probes you mention? The only concern with mine (apart from finding it!) is the size of it, it's designed for a "real" machine and is dimensionally similar to something like a renishaw etc - I may actually have to remove the spindle motor and mount it in a bush in place of it.

Lovely looking machine, your use of the MGN slides on the gantry for a X axis are exactly what I was looking to achieve, making use of my existing pair of 2020 V slot frame spars. The Z axis carrier/saddle is plastic, and I plan to use the round bars and bearings leftover from the X axis to make a wider saddle that incorporates a slightly longer Z axis if I have the parts (I do have a short 16mm ball screw & nut somewhere) - this will reduce my X axis travel by 25mm each way but I think it'll be worth it, and it'll still be more than big enough for my needs.

I think once I've upgraded this that's the limit of the machine, as everything will be a similar strength then in terms of deflection, although I think it may be possible to space the Y axis slides further apart to better react to the moment caused in the bed/spoil board by a milling cutter.

You can see in the photo linked below, the two round steel slides under the bed are mounted quite central close to the screw, I could move them outward right and left, and move the bearing blocks closer to the front/back - as before moving the bearing blocks closer to the front/back will reduce the travel, and again, I think this will be worth it for rigidity so it can do actual routing/milling work - I think the chinese designs tend to go for capacity over quality.

Exactly for the reasons you said, I'm trying not to spend money on it, it'll only ever be as good as its weakest link, so once that's eliminated (the x axis gantry - I can lift the cutter/motor a mm with my hand, it flexes!!) then I think that's about done!

image of the same machine as mine

Hi Russ,

If you search on the likes of Aliexpress for "3D touch probe" there should be quite a few options - probably VAT to be added to the headline ~£40 figure.

I will add a link to an example, but suspect it might not be acceptable to the Mods (mods: in which case, please delete it)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004670392373.html

Also available on eBay and stocked (at twice the price) by CNC4YOU in the UK. I've bought one and it is very good, 6mm shank and low profile, good on small mills and routers. You could get confused between the price for the probe and the spare styli! They have been discussed over on the MYCNCUK forum as well, several people have bought them and rate them highly.

John, Andy,

Thanks they look very nice, and are very well priced, if I cant find or cant get mine to work, I'll buy one on ebay.

£60 seems to be about the going rate on ebay, if it were £40 I would probably just buy one for the convent size and shank, it will save a lot of messing about. £60 however will cover the linear slide upgrade I'm wanting to implement on the X axis.

The machine stands me at about £200, If I can get it scanning and progress my project, I'll pay retail for the linear slides and see if I can do something very budget about that miniscule motor, I've seen very cheap Chinese palm routers on ebay for £15 ish, but they're probably a bit too big and heavy this small frame (The pictures don't really show how small it is - it's just a bit bigger than an A4 printer.

I have Universal Gcode Sender as well as bCNC installed on my Raspberry Pi. Universal Gcode Sender insists on taking the mill Z axis to the top of its travel before it starts. bCNC starts where I tell it and only raises enough to clear any part that may be in its way as is defined in the gcode. YMMV

I spoke earlier about widening the Y axis bearing bars, effectively increasing stability, while reducing the travel a little........

Well, it turns out, this gauge might actually be a new feature on the V2 version of the machine. They improved the design of the Z axis which apparently had excessive flexing (which is exactly what I'm concerned about now, it must've been really bad before!) and it seems they've increased the work area from 260x155 to 290x180. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it looks like the bearing slides are mounted closer together and the bearing blocks are closer together under the table, effectively increasing the travel.

They could've actually just made the frame a little wider which might make the bearings appear closer together but I'm not sure. In any case, I think I'll widen the bearing mount positions and reduce the effective travel should I ever wish to try cutting something requiring more power.

What's the problem? Download and install Thonny free.

Russ B -

I run a 3D router and a 3D printer - both use a variant of Arduino Uno running GRBL, and they cope with no problems. I have run the router on an Arduino Nano loaded with GRBL. Note there are several variants of GRBL around - I am running 1.1h at the moment.

Like Ronald Morrison, I use UGS to feed GCode to the machines from a computer. This computer does not need to be anything special - I actually use a FItlet mini computer which is only running at 1GHz, so as to leave my main desktop free, and it handles the work easily - it only has to stream serial data (Gcode) to the machines. I have also played around with using a UNO to stream the data to the machine. It worked, but the Uno has limited memory, so not much use for 3D printing.

Ronald - UGS can be set up so the origin is anyplace you want it. You can edit the setup data easily enough from UGS itself. I have changed my system so the origin is 'bottom left'. If you can't find out how to do this, let me know and I'll see if I can help.

An

For general info.

GRBLGRU runs under WIndows, but on the GRBLGRU home page, there is a procedure for installing it under WINE in Linux.

LINK