A better BitSetter?

I really like having the BitSetter feature on my machine, when it works.

The biggest issue seems to be the speed of the first approach. It hits so hard that it quickly broke the plastic holder that came with the “store bought” version. I replaced that part with a more sturdy aluminum version mounted the the underside of the table. This worked, but the Z / X takes all that extra force on the first strike. This lasted longer, but eventually resulted in the button itself failing and then a substantial crash.

I bought a new intermittent switch and mounted it on a piece of pvc conduit, it was quick fix and fit the switch. I put a rubber gasket between the switch and conduit in hopes it would absorb some impact. No dice, it lasted about a week.

Beyond the issue of it crushing the button, the cutter also dents the surface of the button. Putting a little cap made of G10 actually fixed that one.

I did a quick search on here and saw you can’t change the approach speed, Is that still the case?
If so I’d like to see some solutions you’ve come up with to over come this issue.


Hi @biltsharp,

What plastic holder ? The BitSetter sits on the front plate like so:

so no plastic involved ?

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That one was not in stock for the longest time, I see now that it’s back.

I couldn’t get that one so I got an aftermarket one. It came with a 3D printed holder similar to the one in the picture. It flexed that thin part that goes over the frame until it snapped. Does this one have any issues with the initial strike?

The BitSetter is very robust in my opinion with it’s all aluminum design. I don’t run my machine as much as some people that run production, but I’ve never had any issues with it falling apart/flexing during tool measuring.

I can’t speak to any non-BitSetter tool length measuring devices as I don’t have experience with anything else.

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It doesn’t, that’s why I was surprised by your post. I’m afraid the non-C3D clones won’t necessarily provide the best experience, and I’m not too surprised that a 3d printed one broke after a while.

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Great to hear. I’ll have to pick one up. Yeah i’m not surprised about the quality, I just couldn’t get find anything else at the time. I think It was right around the release of the Pro models, so I guess they weren’t going to get new inventory with a big change coming.

I don’t know if you remember, but you were helping me a bunch when i first got it, I couldn’t get my machine to go to the right position for the tool change. I finally got it haha

thanks again

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I made one similar to yours, but out of ally angle I had laying around and a $3 switch from eBay, because I didn’t want to pay the shipping costs to Australia.

I also had to make a few versions because of the strike rate.

What I found was that I had to mimic the height of the genuine bitsetter version. As the software slows it down and probes for the height of the genuine one.

Since nailing the height it works a treat.

Cheers

Edit. Your way too low when i looked back at your pic.

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