NcUsbPod probe from scratch

[RobertCl]

Hi everyone,
Just bought AE and need to clarify a few things! I have spent the last 8hrs on Google, Youtube, Cnc zone etc, trying to learn how to get the Mach to save those pesky XYZ values a file in order to autolevel an engraving.

I would love users who have successfully implemented this in AE to fill the gaps and ???? in my description, so all the info' is in one place. I realise it will be doubling up on other posts but it might save some users a lot of frustration!


Here is what I have learned...
1. Some Chinese Usb cnc breakout boards are not configured to return the XYZ values which a G31 command expects to receive.
(formally, I assumed these values came from Mach itself.
But it seems due to deceleration, the DRO(Mach) values
might be slightly off the actual values of when the probe was triggered.
So they come from the hardware instead.)

2. There is a work around! We probe at very low speed(very important for accuracy) and grab the DRO values and use them instead of the XYZ values expected from the Usb breakout.

3. To do this we need to do two things.
A.)Write a macro for Mach.
B.)Customise our probing file from AE.

A.)In Mach go to Operator> VB Script Editor. In there, type: SetVar(2002,getoemdro(802))
save this file in the macros folder of your current Mach profile(MachMill for example).
Save it as file name: M2002.m1s
Well, that should get the Z value anyway. Do we need to use #2000/800 and #2001/801 also to get X and Y???

B.)In Autoleveller AE go to Options>Custom Controller Options, and fill in the following details:
Probe Word: G31
Probe Command: M2002
Zero Word: G52????
Zero Command:????
Current Z Parameter: #805????
Starting Probe Parameter:#500????
Open Log Command: M40
Close Log Command: M41
File Extention: .ngc

4.Load your gcode to the main screen of Autoleveller AE and use Controller>Custom. Execute as normal.

[daedelus]

Always good to have such succinct descriptions of this issue as it is increasingly common. Thanks.

Should give people enough info to get going with this and maybe "fill in the gaps" they find.