[diyengineer]

So finally found the pinout of the bob that is in my little machine shop KX3.

I was gonna pickup an plug terminal for $18.70
CNC4PC

I have this probe (not the best but it will get me use to probing parts and if i crash it i won't mind. Really want a tormach probe).
CNC4PC

I see there is 2 different ways to wire it (attached). Wondering which way will work with my bob?

I'm assuming i just wire it from the probe pin to the farthest ground and that should do it?

[doorknob]

I don't have those actual parts, so this is just my best guess:

It looks like the mini plug from the probe has a tip contact, a middle ring contact, and an outer shield ground contact.

You would want to wire up a matching "mini stereo jack" to your breakout board, with both the middle ring contact and the shield ground contact connected to your breakout board's ground terminal. The tip contact should be connected to one of the input terminals of your breakout board (and that input terminal should be configured as an active low input in Mach3), and the tip contact should also be connected to one end of a 4700 ohm 1/4-watt resistor, and the other end of the resistor should be connected to the +5 volt terminal on your breakout board.

With that setup, the probe is "pulled up" to +5 volts (weakly, through the resistor) so that the associated input pin normally reads "high", and when it makes contact with the metal base of the probe (which should be grounded) the input terminal will go "low".

I can not tell for certain, but it looks like (and I am therefore assuming that) your breakout board does not use optoisolators on the input pins, rather they are directly connected to the corresponding parallel port pins.

I don't think that the LED will light up with that hookup (not enough current flowing through the LED to light it up), but I don't think it will light up with the first CNC4PC diagram either.

But again, I have not actually worked with those parts, so this is just a guess.

[diyengineer]

Thanks door knob. Yes, the buzzer was a fail. It didn't have enough juice to work. I can't remember if the LED ever worked or not.. I'll cross that bridge when i get to it.

Hopefully use this to learn with (im sure ill crash and burn a few times). Then when i got the hang of using it, ill invest in the tormach probe.

More to come.

Thanks.