Probably a stupid question but.....

[44henry]

I'm starting to get more experience with my ShopBot but I must confess that I am having some problems getting the bit lined up with the XY axis of my workpiece. We have several mills in our lab and we use a laser edge finder to position the spindle center directly over the edge of the part. I can easily mount this into the router collet but I have yet to find a good means of moving it precisly over to the edge of the part. It seems that the keyboard movements are to jerky to be reliable and imputting direct distances is too slow. Is there a control made that will allow me to precisely move the carriage position like the handwheel controls on our mills?

[ljdm]

I made this xy zero finder, crude, but it works. I attach a wire from my z-zero plate to the metal on the side of the triangle block. I use either a 1/2" or 1/4" rod, the zero routine asks what size you are using, moves to the x, hits the metal, and stops, then to the y, hits the metal and stops, and positions the bit at X1",Y1"
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5437 (2.9 k)

[sawdust535]

Alex, this might help you also . . its in the Command Reference Guide:
SK - Set to Keyboard Arrows to Move Tool
[shortcut: <k> ]
This command activates the Arrow Key movement control that allows moving your tool around from the keyboard. We refer to this as the KeyPad mode. . . . . .
Several additional functions are provided. If you hit a <D> (upper or lower case) on your keyboard or click on the “fixed” button in the keypad window the tool will move a fixed distance. This distance is set in the Fill-In sheet by typing “VD” and changing the “KeyPad Fixed Distance” value.

[oddcoach]

I usually screw a piece of scrap to the table top
and machine it at a set dimension say 2". then i have a stop at an accurate position on the table. then just slide your workpiece up to it.
John

[knight_toolworks]

yes the laser is a bit of a pain. but if your in keyboard mode it is not hard to type in the movement. once you find the corner of the table write the measurements down. you can add them somewhere in the new shopbot software and now the bot will zero on the corner of the table.
I have custom c# files that zero then move the bot to a place on the table and zero it.
so only when I remove my jigs do I need to check the setup again.