Touch Probe

[awemawson]

I have the ceramic ones on my Heidenhain TS511 touch probe on my Beaver PartsMaster - it always gives me the heeby geebies when I use it as they are SO fragile. The probe has over travel built in but still ....

The probe has an i/r transmitter built in that is picked up by a stationary sensor on the machine making probing whilst rotating possible

Andrew

[claudef]

'awemawson'
Beautiful probe specially the IR feature and specially the coolant to keep it cool, . This is way over sophisticated for me, the only parts I need to machine are small parts to repair equipment to keep my hobby going.

[awemawson]

Gloat Gloat ! I actually have another two of the probes, but no i/r sensors for them. Some charlie had stored them in a damp place and the shanks have rusted, but the bodies are fine as they are stainless and still work ok. The shanks are replaceable as the same body is sold with all sorts of taper mounts - it is just clamped on. In practice the shanks would clean up as it's only light surface rust but what a scandal to let them get like that.

Using it this morning and thinking of this thread, I realised what a joy it was to use. Lower the ruby into a hole, tell the control to find the centre, set that as datum X&Y = 0 then move out of the hole, over the stock, tell the control to find the surface, set that as datum Z = 0.

You can even let it find a slightly off parallel to machine axis side to a piece of stock, then get it to rotate it's co-ordinate grid accordingly so there is no need to accurately place your stock. All this in a control made in 1989 ! I love it.

Andrew

[cncit]

Looks really handy Andrew..wish my Partsmaster had one..do you use an M19 to lock the spindle before probing? Or have you got indexing on the spindle with the Indramat drive set up?

John J