Relatively new to machining but purchased the new nomad 3 to try my luck at machining some aluminum parts.
As I remembered on a tormach I used, I need an edgefinder and parallel set if I want to have some accuracy.
I looked for an edge-finder recommendation in the forum but only found links to one that carbide3D doesn’t sell anymore. What are people using now to find their edges with the Nomad? Any recommendations?
Also any parallel sets people recommend that work well with the nomad vice?
If I recall correctly, new spindle doesn’t work with the edge finders because of higher rpm.
But I think there is a solution that will be shipped as part of the machine.
You can buy the old one that Carbide 3D used to recommend online. It’s made by Fisher Machine and can be found here for example.
However I tried it and found it an absolute pain to work and as @Radiation says, it won’t work at all with the new Nomad, which has a higher minimum RPM than the 883 Pro.
My preference is an electronic 3D touch probe. I use this one but not sure where to get it in the US. There are lots of other options like these as well though.
The big advantage of these, aside from accuracy and repeatability, is that since the machine has feedback, you can set up probing routines and even integrate them with your G-Code. I haven’t tried that with GRBL though.
YES!! Super interested in this thread as well…just weeks away from my Nomad 3 being delivered…I hope and I don’t have a solution for edge finding and/or center hole sweeping.
One idea I was throwing around was just spinning the spindle by hand, but there has be to a solution here.
The issue with using this mechanical edge finder on the Nomad (and most, honestly) is that it’s quite long. Even if the shank were reduced to 1/4" so you could fit it in the Nomad’s spindle, you’re still looking at a tool that’s 3-4" long from the looks of it. That, plus your workholding (e.g. vise) reduces what you can do on your Nomad a lot.
It’s a problem I have with my electronic edge-finder as well and that looks to be quite a bit shorter.
Yeah, the Nomad makes using edge finders tough sometimes due to the length. One can use precision pins to do the job. These are ± 0.0001 or so and can be obtained at short lengths. Move them, very slowly, against the side of the stock. Use a flashlight to ensure “just kissing”.
Adjust the zero accordingly, by the radius of the pin.
Maybe dumb question but what would you call these? I tried to order some “dowel pins” but got something that appeared to be quite far from a precision tool.
