New Probing routines ??

[Robertspark]

Is there anything special that anyone wants to see ??

what's on offer?

combined X+Y motion would be good (any two axis really).

- find the internal center of a tube
- find the external center of a riser / spigot

I did start one, but if you have a fixed touch off block, square in shape, the ability to probe two points along an X axis, and find the slope of those two points, then probe the y axis, and find the slope of those two points, then offset for the size of the square block to find the center of the block. Then probe the z, and offset the tool tip.
The reason for this is because the square (or rectangular) block may not be square to your X and Y axis (perfectly square). Hence this probing routine would allow you to basically fix something like an 1" square calibration block to your table, and it's squareness to the X and Y axis are of no relevance.....

You could do this with a circular 1" calibration test piece (as is used for micrometers.... I have an old (60yr+) micrometer that has been broken for at least 1/2 it's life as a hand me down, everything is complete, hence I may have a use for the 1" calibration test piece..... although different probing routine.

[cncdrive]

Terry,

I think you forgot about the Tools/probe menu which was added a few versions back, it has the probe radius value field and if you set that then the probe trigger point is compensated like you described.
It works every time you execute a G31, not only when digitizing.
If you set the radius to zero then there is no compensation.

[cncdrive]

OK, I see now that the question is about how to determinate the probe radius + probe switch travel.
And I think the same that probing a known sized simple geometry is the only way.
Then you can write that value as probe radius which will then include the probe radius plus the switch travel .. derived from the measurement.