Probing with the Nomad

It’ll be in the $100 range.

-Rob

Can I send you money now!!! :grin:

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yes, please create an item in your webstore, I will also send money now.

I’m just now seeing this. I thought the video was maybe just a prototype and the production one would have some kind of pocket. I wouldn’t be concerned if I was working with wood and plenty of extra material and little concern of tolerance.
However if I was working with tighter tolerances ,
I would be concerned that I needed an EDGE FINDER for my EDGE FINDER. If you look at the video the block is not on the edge squarely.

I completely agree with how strange it is not having a pocket for precise zeroing. I’m really not understanding the friction theory from surface area. Wouldn’t it be better to just press it lighty in place against the inside of the pocket than hoping it doesn’t move?. @robgrz can you explain the reasoning?. It doesn’t make sense to me.

This looks AWESOME! I’m still unclear though, will I be able to hack this into my Nomad Classic?

yeah, I’m also interested in if it can be ‘hacked’ onto the nomad classic, sort of a deal breaker for me.
Regards the pocket for zeroing I think of it like this. I don’t want to always use the nearest left most corner of my stock as the datum. Sometimes it might be the middle for example.
However, and this is a big one from a design point of view, friction force is independent of surface area…
Although a larger area of contact between two surfaces would create a larger source of frictional forces, it also reduces the pressure between the two surfaces for a given force holding them together. Since pressure equals force divided by the area of contact, it works out that the increase in friction generating area is exactly offset by the reduction in pressure; the resulting frictional forces, then, are dependent only on the frictional coefficient of the materials and the FORCE holding them together.
Thus, why not have a pocket for when you want to zero in the corner of the stock?

@1st_Kiwi_Nomad Loved your scientific explanation. Have to admit I had to read it twice but I got it!. Beautifully said. Yes, it’s also a deal breaker for me if not hackable to the Classic Nomad. Mine is already “hacked” to use the Triquetra probe and it works great. The problem with the Triquetra is that it needs Universal GCode Sender to work and I’d love to use Carbide Motion because of it’s tool length probing. Right now I can’t use the Triquetra with Carbide Motion because it won’t use some GCode needed by the Triquetra.

@patofoto Hey that sounds interesting, so you are not using Carbide motion? Have you also changed the driver board to something that can accept Mach 4 or similar? I have thought of hacking mine to work with a G540 and smooth stepper board I have.

@1st_Kiwi_Nomad I’m still using Carbide Motion and not using my Triquetra because not being able to use the zero data I get from Universal GCode Sender. I was in the process of trying to figure out a workflow when Carbide3D announced they were coming out with their own probe that would work with Carbide Motion and I stopped the research. Other that having spliced cables to the tool length probe, my Nomad Classic is as it came from the factory. UGS uses GRBL. I have the courage to experiment and take risks and have very good common sense but don’t know much about electronics. Love to tinker and figure things out.

@robgrz Any updates on the touch probe?. Would make an awesome Xmas present! (for me of course).

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