kartracer63
01-15-2013, 05:05 PM
I've seen a number of ShopBotters post about their Z-Zeroing problems. I was watching with great interest, as I was suffering from Z-Zeroing problems of my own and was hoping somebody would come up with the solution to my problem.
Sometimes my Z-Zero would work fine, and sometimes it wouldn't make contact and try to drive my bit through the bottom of my table. I searched high and low for the solution to my problem for a couple months.
Another botter posted about his intermittent problems and said he started touching the Z-Zero plate to the bit and watched for his light to come on before going through the Z-Zero routine. So, I started doing the same thing before zeroing. Sometimes it would make contact and sometimes it wouldn't.
I finally figured out that it had something to do with the position of the clamp on the bolt. I thought it might have been bad wiring at first.
I later discovered the real problem. I had actually wore the center part of my clamp (from sliding it on and of the bolt from thousands of zeroing routines) enough to where it was no longer making good contact.
So... either I can file the clamp down so it'll make good contact with the bolt again, or I can replace the clamp with a new one, or I can use it as is and always clamp it with the wire on top so it'll have enough downward pull on the clamp for the bolt head to make contact with the inside of the clamp handle.
Either way... problem solved.
Sometimes my Z-Zero would work fine, and sometimes it wouldn't make contact and try to drive my bit through the bottom of my table. I searched high and low for the solution to my problem for a couple months.
Another botter posted about his intermittent problems and said he started touching the Z-Zero plate to the bit and watched for his light to come on before going through the Z-Zero routine. So, I started doing the same thing before zeroing. Sometimes it would make contact and sometimes it wouldn't.
I finally figured out that it had something to do with the position of the clamp on the bolt. I thought it might have been bad wiring at first.
I later discovered the real problem. I had actually wore the center part of my clamp (from sliding it on and of the bolt from thousands of zeroing routines) enough to where it was no longer making good contact.
So... either I can file the clamp down so it'll make good contact with the bolt again, or I can replace the clamp with a new one, or I can use it as is and always clamp it with the wire on top so it'll have enough downward pull on the clamp for the bolt head to make contact with the inside of the clamp handle.
Either way... problem solved.