I have been gone to Houston for a few days visiting family and friends. I got back and went to work today. I used my new Carbide 3d touch probe to zero x,y, and z with a #201 bit. After the setup I jogged the router over to the center of the piece of oak I used to set zero and the Z zero was .034" (.8636MM) above the surface of the wood with the Z axis showing “0”. Since this was an x,y and Z probe for zero I had the lip of the touch probe hanging off on two edges. I measured the touch probe and it is exactly 25MM on the tall sides and 22MM on the short sides of the probe. I am running Carbide Motion 4 and the firmware is the latest released 1.1. The machine is an XXL.
Any idea why my touch probe is not setting the Z zero properly. From looking the X and Y are set ok. As stated on a previous post on this subject I had cut 12 boxes and all failed to cut through the bottom but each box was consistent and seemed to be just was the gcode was commanded to cut. I found no variations in the cuts. After zeroing the first board I simply clamped the successive 11 boards in and started the job using the already set up x,y and z zero. If I use the paper method to zero Z the boxes are cut through just like they should.
It is not a big deal to set the z with paper but I bought a $120.00 probe to do that more accurately than manually setting. I dont feel that my Z axis is the problem. The Z axis moves smoothly manually and the belt feels tight and the cuts for depth are consistent. I made sure my bit is tight so I dont think this is an operator error. Anything is possible but if my Z axis was loose or the bit was not fully tightened I would be getting inconsistent results in depth of the pockets.