I just set up the probe on my mill and I've done a couple of bosses/bores and things seem to work well for X and Y coordinates. I was reading in the manual on probing and notice that on the "single surface" probing you can probe in Z. The only thing is I can't figure out how that does any good.
I have a 325 Tree Journeyman with CAT40 tools and I have a dedicated Z Ref tool for use with the TT1. That works very well, but you sure can't have the TT1 and the probe hooked up at the same time. Since the TT1 seems to depend on the tools being electrically conductive it doesn't seem likely that I can get the probe tip to pass the current to complete the circuit, so I wouldn't be able to set the probe length offset to the Z Ref tool using the TT1.
The manual doesn't address this. What I'm thinking is to load the Z Ref tool and touch off the table or top of the vise, record the Z dimension, and then probe that same spot and see what the Z dimension is with the probe. I think that should give me a Z Ref offset just as with manually measuring tools that I can put in the tool library.
What I'm hoping is that if I then set part Z zero with the probe the control will take that and apply it to all the other tools so that I don't have to pick a "real" tool and set the Z zero with it. If I've got the probe in there and I'm using it to set X zero and Y zero, changing tools to set Z zero seems like a waste of time since it means I'm back to the "feeler gauge between the tool and part" method instead of using the probe that reads in tenths.
Is that likely to work?
cheers,
Michael