Touch probe?

[MidniteMachinist]

I've got an iGaging board, and am trying to figure out the touch probe input. How exactly would I wire one to the board? I'm looking to make a normally-open probe, and cannot figure out which of the 3 solder pads to use. I have figured out that the square pad is +3.3v.

Further, where is the "touch" displayed on the tablet readout?

Thanks for any/all help.

[MidniteMachinist]

Ok. So I've got an LED hooked to +3.3v (the square terminal), and ground (the left-most terminal). That gets me a light when the probe makes contact with the work.

What I'm left wondering, is if there's any sort of indication within the app, of if the LED is all I've got. That's all i really need to know.

[bobdring]

Hi Midnight,

Since you haven't got a reply i thought that I would add my 2 cents worth.

The touch probe at this stage lights the LED on the controller and sends a message of the event over bluetooth to the android display but that is where it ends. The display doesn't act on or show the touch probe signal. So what you are seeing is normal.

Years ago there was mention of a new android app by Yuriy that will offer many improvements, even perhaps including touch probe support, but Yuriy seems to have been too busy with other things to work on it.

Yuriy, if you can't find the time and energy to work on it, why don't you make Touch DRO open source ?

One thing that irritates me is that the bluetooth drops out now and again and cannot seem to reconnect by itself.

[MidniteMachinist]

Thanks for the reply. Was getting sorta frustrated, given that I've received help on other questions on this forum in a relatively quick manner. I very much appreciate what Yuriy has done with this platform, and I'm not rushing him in any way. I just wanted to know, to make sure I wasn't being stupid and missing something obvious.

It's good to know that the LED I've got integrated in the system is done correctly, and in it's current implementation is adequate for my needs. I'll admit having it displayed on the tablet readout would be wonderful, as that's where I'm primarily looking when I'm setting the workspace parameters. But I can easily make this work.

Also, I get no connection issues, outside of the occasional hiccup on startup.

[bobdring]

Hi Midnite,

The LED on my mixed signal board (set for quadrature) is best mounted behind the mill facing the wall. So having the touch LED repeated on the display would be nice.

Also the touch probe has many possible extra functions that could then be implemented such as self calibration, edge and mid point detection.

My Bluetooth disconnects 1-2 times a day. Since I'm bench testing it in the house, I am sure it isn't related to any motor interference in the workshop.

[MidniteMachinist]

So, far, I've only added DRO's to my mini-lathe.

But I definitely see the utility of such a thing, and have already implemented a touch probe. The LED is mounted at the bottom right corner of the lathe control panel, which is plainly visible.

So far, I've used if to verify the Z-height of my chuck jaws (and seen that there's at least one jaw that's a thou proud of the others... dammit...), to be able to measure part thickness without a caliper or mic. I know that, once I've got a decently repeatable tool post, that I've got a lot more possibilities. And when I put DRO's on my mill? Hell yeah.

This whole setup has possibilities that keep my brain occupied enough for me to lose sleep. I forget where I first heard of this board, but I'm quite glad I did.