Adding A Tool Touch Off to my Centroid Acorn CNC System

This article describes how I connected a Tool Touch Off to my Centroid Acorn CNC System.

If none of this statement makes sense to you, let me explain a little. A Tool Touch Off is a fancy electrical switch. In its "normal" state, the switch is closed. When a disk on the top of the device is depressed a tiny amount, the switch opens. This switch is connected to my Centroid Acorn brand Computer Numerical Control system.

As configured, I install my various cutters one at a time in the mill and push a few buttons. The system lowers each cutter down on my Tool Touch Off and can sense touch down. This lets it measure the length of each cutter. It can then compensates for the variation in cutter length as machining automatically proceeds.

If you are interested, please see

http://rick.sparber.org/TTCA.pdf


Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.

Thanks,

Rick

Thanks for this Rick. I'm about to start investigating and building a CNC so will look at this with interest.

David

Thanks Rick! We've added your CNC Tool Touch Off to our CNC category, as well as to your builder page: Rick's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-cnc-tool-touch-off"><img src="http://www.homemadetools.net/uploads/204365/homemade-cnc-tool-touch-off.png"/></a></div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-cnc-tool-touch-off">CNC Tool Touch Off</a> <span> by <a href="/builder/Rick+Sparber">Rick Sparber</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/CNC">CNC</a>, <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/electronics">electronics</a></div> </div> </div> </div>