I just wanted to take a moment and tell you all a story about the experience I had recently with a company that I found out about on here. The company name is CNCNeeds and they manufacture the TLO Setter II device which makes setting up your tools fast and simple, and no fuss.

Anyway, I have been wanted a TLO Setter II for sometime now, and I finally broke down and bought one. Let me first say, I was very impressed with the device, it worked great, even with the built in touch off and tool setting routines in the Tormach version of Mach3. The only grumble I had was about switching from active to passive mode, as I have the passive touch probe that Tormach sells, and the TLO Setter II is active mode. I knew this, and I still ordered it, and like the product very much, minus my grumble.

On a whim, I sent an email back to John Muse, one of the guys from CNCNeeds, and asked him if there were some way to create a passive mode tool setter. He happened to be away from his mill, and didn't have anything to test the possibility out, so he asked me to do a bunch of testing for him. Well, in a few short weeks, he came up with a test cable for me to run some tests, and shortly after that, he told me to send my active mode TLOSetterII back, and he sent me a passive mode setter. Their new product works FLAWLESSLY I'm happy to say, and I wanted to thank them in short by letting everyone else know about their great product!

I have honestly never had such accurately set tools (and I had a pretty darn good method of setting up tools too). My machining has gotten a ton more accurate, with very little effort on my part. In my testing, I'm getting at least .0005" accuracy. That's is great for anything I machine.

I'm happy to answer any questions about my experience with the guys at CNCNeeds, but I encourage you to email them directly and get their product, and get the experience of dealing with them yourself. You won't be disappointed.

Their tool setter is a very affordable option that works just as well as more expensive options out there, and it now works whether you have the active probe, or the passive probe.

Cheers, and happy machining!

Wade