Z- touch plate probing moves X & Y

[bogend]

Hi,

I am having trouble with Z- touch plate probing. If the current X & Y coords are both zero when probing is initiated, then probing seems to be OK. The probe moves down until it contacts the TP. However, if the X coordinate is not zero when probing starts, then the X axis will move along with the Z axis during probing. Furthermore, the value of the X coordinate will act as the maximum travel in the X direction during the probing cycle. That is, if X = .1, then probing will stop after X moves another 0.1 during probing (ending with X = .2, that is unless the probe hits the TP first). If X = -.1 at the beginning, then the X axis will move in the opposite direction. Same thing happens in the Y direction if Y is not zero.

MSM 2.0
Mach3 3.043.37
Windows XP
Smoothstepper

Thanks,

Dan

[DaveCVI]

Hi,
My first thought is that you have probably ran across a bug in the Smooth Stepper plugin - earlier versions of the SS software would move more than one axis when a single axis was commanded for a probe move. I'm not 100% positive of my diagnosis as the original problem report was for mach's lathe mode rather than mill mode. MSM release notes section 5 has more info.

In any case, the SS bug was fixed in these SS plug-in (and
later) versions:
USB SS: V17efe.zip
Ethernet SS: V10da5.zip

If you are running an earlier SS plugin release, please update to the revs above and let me know if that solves the issue for you or not.

Dave

[bogend]

Thanks Dave,

My system doesn't work with the latest SS plug-in, so I might be stuck if this is the problem. However, I've used the G31 probing command with my system before, and I don't think I had any problems. In any case, I'll try my own probing macro with the SS plug-in I am presently using, as well as try the latest SS plug-in again (maybe it will work fo me this time). I'll be away from my shop for a little while, but I'll let you know what the result is.

Thanks for your help,

Dan

[DaveCVI]

Some more info:
The SS plug-in issue had the same symptom that you describe where the amount of movement of the non-commanded axes was dependent on the amount that the probe started away from X,Y = 0,0. That's a strange enough pattern to make me suspect it being the same SS plug-in bug.
The core problem ended up being issue between Mach and the SS plug-in synchronizing data buffers.

Note that if you intend to test probing with the SS via manual G31 commands, that there are a lot of combination to try. For example, MSM does much of it's low level G31 movements in G91 mode, whereas, I'd bet that you (like most) would default to trying G31 from G90 mode mode...

Dave

[bogend]

Hi Dave,

I managed to install the latest SS plugin and now the probing seems to be working correctly! Greg at Warp9 helped to get me on track by suggesting that I rebuild the XML profile file from scratch. (That made the SS plugin behave.) And then I generated a new MSM profile from that.

Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

Dan

[DaveCVI]

Hi Dan,
That's good news!
Dave