Hooking up our zero plate

[greg_oliver]

Got a zero plate from the jamboree, no wires just the plat, We downloaded the instructions from the web and have a few questions, the wires from the block to the plate, How are they connected?
Need some imput on this.

[Ted Hall, ShopBot]

Hi Greg,

The principle is that there is a single wire connection from the #1 input terminal on the terminal block to the plate.

After you've hooked it up, to test, touch the plate to the bit, or a bolt on the tool. The #1 input indicator should come on. If not, touch to a control box bolt. If the latter works, then the ShopBot or bit are not grounded ... if it also does not work on the control box, then it's not wired right.

Once you seem connected right, just run the S_ZZero.sbp routine (also called by just typing C2). This is a double touch (for accuracy) routine, so don't pull the plate out on the first touch.

[davidallen]

they're soldered

[tredmond@co.jefferson.co.us]

We are still in the process of assembling our SB, so I'm pretty sure that we will have more questions. But first things first, from the Zero plate there is a coiled black cable that ends in a gray plastic connector, where does it go. We have already hooked the brown cable (with the white and black wires inside) to the control box.

[pappy]

Jefferson County

The gray plastic connector is there for connecting the digitizing probe. I mounted the bracket for the zero plate, inserted the plate in it and then just hung the gray connector over the top of it until I need to run the probe file.

[tlempicke]

Something to keep in mind

What stops the downward travel of the Z axis is when the cutter contacts the Z Zero plate and switch number one makes. You can see this if you will touch the plate to any grounded piece of the machine while watching the screen. A low voltage signal is travelling through the frame of the router and the frame of the machine.

If your grounding or wiring is not secure, with a reasonably low resistence, then the cutter will keep travelling downward till something breaks. Also the sowftware is not happy when that switch keeps making or breaking while it is trying to cut a part, for instance if your Z Zero plate is bouncing against a metal part on the machine.

The ground is the most likely place to have this trouble.

I lost two $30 cutting bits before I soldered all of the wiring and installed a separate ground strap to the router housing.