Tool change...who does what?

I’d like to know how you all are dealing with tool changes on the Shapeoko? Is there a way to probe after a tool change, or do I need to edit the gcode manually to add in a probe?

The official recommendation is http://docs.carbide3d.com/tutorials/tool-change/

GRBL 1.1 will handle tool changes mid-job, however I don’t know of any g-code senders that will let you probe the tool length after a tool change. I might be wrong. Most people will just output all the code for each tool in separate files. Then once a job run ends, change the tool, re-zero, and run the next job.

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The touch probe is certainly helpful for this as well if you can afford it. Though I recommend working on the way William has suggested when starting out.

That’s what I’m doing right now, and it’s not a huge problem, I just wondered if I could run a single file job.

Thx for the info Will.

I use Fusion 360 and GRBL-panel. When it needs a tool change, the spindle goes to the start of that toolpath, raises up and waits. I can change the tool, re-zee and continue from there. My two-tool job is all in one file.

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Thanks, I user F360 also. Is GRBL-panel a plugin?

GRBL-panel is a replacement for Carbide Motion. I like it because it permits macros and you can store a couple of favorite positions. I do a lot of repeatable jobs and macros are invaluable for that. I still use the old
contoller version (0.9). The latest version of Motion and 1.1 may do these things now; I don’t know. GRBL-panel does what I need it to do. I use the standard Carbide post processor in F360, by the way, for GRBL-panel. https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel

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That’s awesome. Yeah, I’d like to be able to use things like tool offsets, then I can just buy a bunch of collets for my tools and have them fixed. I might use 4 tools in a project, and just don’t want to create 4 separate jobs.

Thanks for the info, I’ll take a look at it.

I use Vcarve Desktop and it forces me to output to separate files for each tool anyway. So if you follow this approach you’ll be ready when you upgrade.

I need to update the thread with my current method, but I do something like what I posted here.

https://binged.it/2CkYXFV

There’s a carbide motion specific post processor that you can use which allows tool changes when you output gcode

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Not really interested as I zero using the touch thingy when I change bits.

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