I’ve been in and out of setting up the cnc for the past year and a half with life.
Now dedicating some serious time to this and revisiting everything I can. I need some help understanding that I have the controller and ATC settings correctly.
I’ve setup the ATC in the front right per the instructions. I’ve gone through and followed the following video a few times to make sure the wiring and the unit controller is correct.
can’t seem to wrap my head around is that the machine when homing goes to Zero cooridnates for x,y and does the auto probe for Z.
If I take a drawing and output it via vetric, how does it know to be offset from the tool changer on the spoil board? feels like I’m going to run a program and it’s going to use zero on the machine and run into the ATC or something.
How does the machine know not to go inside the boundary that is now the ATC area?
What I
The answer to the second question depends on the controller. Masso allows ATC tool racks to be placed outside of the soft limits (tool setter must be within however) and allows the machine to override the soft limits only during tool changes. I do not believe The Redline controller allows this - perhaps a feature request(?). If the latter is correct then you need to be careful to avoid machining operations or travels that will collide with the Easy ATC when using the Redline.
Your first question relates to tool offsets, and machine vs work coordinate systems - all of these are discussed and illustrated well in online text and video sources.
The main understanding is that the tool setter allows the controller to store differences in relative tool lengths, with the tool setter calculating these Tool Length Offsets (TLO) between selected tools. The first auto tool setter use sets an offset or tool length relative to the spindle and tool setter. After this you need to zero this tool on your workpiece (along with the X and Y axes) based on where you set this up in your CAM. This becomes your work coordinate. When you then request a tool change, the controller compares the new TLO of this new tool to the stored value of the previous tool, and automatically calculates the difference in length. This ensures that the new tool continues machining at the exact Z height as the previous tool.
For example, Tool #1 is used for roughing, and then Tool #2 is loaded for the finishing OP. It happens to be a shorter endmill, and when touched off the tool setter, it is found and recorded to be exactly 17.35 mm shorter. The controller compensates for this using the measured/stored tool offsets, and the spindle/Z axis will therefore need to be lowered in this case (offset) by this amount in order for the finishing OP to continue at the correct height on the stock.
The key thing is that the machine zero and your VCarve job zero are different. Once you set the work zero on the material, the G-code uses that position for the job, while the ATC locations are stored separately in Masso. I’d verify the ATC pocket coordinates and WCS before running the first job, then test the tool-change moves with the spindle safely raised.
ok machine 0 is machine 0 - got it.
tool setter from the video is calculated and taken care of by the masso controller.
vcarve 0 us usually lower left on projects. so in my head I need to pick out and set a 90 degree stop in the lower left of my bed? some people use dowels or pvc pipes to do this. Just trying to find a way to logically and mentally not mess this up. Already forgot something with the ATC and punched down straight through an existing tool collet and had to re-3d print the cup and inserts.
guess what I’m trying to say is work piece 0 I’ll use the probe brick to do the lower left edge of my work material once I have it secured to the spoil board (assuming I have a clean 90 degree indicator. use the brick probe, x,y,z then set off the work job and ATC will come into play after the first tool is done and it switches to the second.
you always have to do the manual probe in the beginning?
