Probing Angle/Corner

[Toaster]

Probing question for you all (probably Swissi!)

I have some jigs that I use on a regular basis, most of them have right angles on at least one side. I'm using these jigs on a 4x8 router table. My table doesn't have any vices or pins on it to locate the jigs as I often also do full sheets.

So imagine that most jigs end up on the table like this (angle is more extreme than normal, but it's done to illustrate the point)

I have to know three things for these jigs to work: Z height of the jig, angle of the jig, and the XY zero point of the jig (usually in the bottom left)

Here are my steps:

First I clamp down the jig (duh) and angle probe on the longest edge.

The I probe along the corner to find the bottom left corner

Then I probe the Z

This works, but it's a lot of steps. For one jig in particular I wrote a script to automate this, but it only works for that jig and took a lot of work to pull off, not something I want to do for every random jig I make.

Is there an easier way to combine these steps? I can't help but thinking that probing a corner could combine all of this stuff. Perhaps I'm missing a feature in Centroid or maybe this is in ProbeApp?

[slodat]

Coordinate system rotation will help with the X and Y zero part of this puzzle.

[Sword]

Does this jig hold a part that then gets machined? Why not design the jig to have one "square" corner that you then align to the table XY (ledger strip or pins), and then probe the square corner to set XY or probe a bore that has been cut in the jig. Then toolpath the part within the jig layout so the coordinates are set with the jig. No need to probe for the angle at all then. Just some thoughts, I may not be seeing the whole picture.

Scott

[swissi]

Probing question for you all (probably Swissi!)

I have some jigs that I use on a regular basis, most of them have right angles on at least one side. I'm using these jigs on a 4x8 router table. My table doesn't have any vices or pins on it to locate the jigs as I often also do full sheets.

So imagine that most jigs end up on the table like this (angle is more extreme than normal, but it's done to illustrate the point)

2021-03-27 at 8.54 AM.png

I have to know three things for these jigs to work: Z height of the jig, angle of the jig, and the XY zero point of the jig (usually in the bottom left)

Here are my steps:

First I clamp down the jig (duh) and angle probe on the longest edge.

The I probe along the corner to find the bottom left corner

Then I probe the Z

This works, but it's a lot of steps. For one jig in particular I wrote a script to automate this, but it only works for that jig and took a lot of work to pull off, not something I want to do for every random jig I make.

Is there an easier way to combine these steps? I can't help but thinking that probing a corner could combine all of this stuff. Perhaps I'm missing a feature in Centroid or maybe this is in ProbeApp?

If highest accuracy is of concern, you should do an outside corner probing cycle first. The outside corner cycle measures two points on the X-axis and two points on the Y-axis, then calculates two vectors going through the two measured points and finds the exact corner where the two vectors intersect. You set WCS X0 Y0 at this pointed than you do an CSR-Angle cycle on the longer side to rotate the coordinate system around the WCS 0 point. Then you do the single axis Z cycle to set WCS Z0. These are the 3 steps to get the best accuracy.

If the angle is really minimal you can cut this down to two cycles by doing a Triple Edge cycle very close to the corner to set WCS X0 Y0 Z0 in one cycle and then use a CSR-Angle cycle to rotate the coordinate system.

If this is still too much work for you and you are using Fusion 360 as your CAM system you could program the probing moves as tool paths and use my Fusion 360 probing cycles for Centroid to execute the probing commands as part of the job file but you might find that programming the probing commands takes time too and you might not save any time overall as the ProbeApp makes running the 3 or 2 cycles needed quick and easy.

-swissi

[Toaster]

Oh interesting.... I thought I had to do the angle probe first.

So if I had a jig setup just like you see it in my picture in the original post, doing an outside corner will essentially draw a line through the four points that are probed (two on X and two on Y) and where the lines meet, that's the corner. That makes sense. At this point I don't have an angle so I still have to probe that. (I know I'm repeating what you just said, I just want to make sure I've got it right)

So here's a dumb question: Why doesn't outside corner probing just pick up the angle? Maybe ProbeApp does that? (Triple Edge is something that's in probe app only right?)

[slodat]

You have to have the digitizing bundle for CSR, if I'm understanding the webpage correctly. I have it so I'm not sure how the manual CSR works.

[swissi]

Oh interesting.... I thought I had to do the angle probe first.

So if I had a jig setup just like you see it in my picture in the original post, doing an outside corner will essentially draw a line through the four points that are probed (two on X and two on Y) and where the lines meet, that's the corner. That makes sense. At this point I don't have an angle so I still have to probe that. (I know I'm repeating what you just said, I just want to make sure I've got it right)

So here's a dumb question: Why doesn't outside corner probing just pick up the angle? Maybe ProbeApp does that? (Triple Edge is something that's in probe app only right?)

The outside corner cycle also works for parts where the X and Y leg are not at a 90 degree angle (perpendicular) so the cycle wouldn't know which side to use for CSR rotation.

The Triple Edge Cycle is only in the ProbeApp.

You have to have the digitizing bundle for CSR, if I'm understanding the webpage correctly. I have it so I'm not sure how the manual CSR works.

The Pro version does have the CSR cycle since Centroid made the probing cycles available for Pro level too.

-swissi