Probelog question

[Hessel Oosten]

Hi James, All,

Probelog question please.

1. When the probing is ready, I'm asked to overwrite the old probelog file, which I will do of course.
Are the data this file in the milling process, which follow hereafter, still used during the processing -or- is is only for documentation/quality control.

2. The reason for asking 1. is that during the probing, one place in my probing file lands constantly on an already isolated pad from the part of the pcb which was already milled. Due to the isolation there no probing/electrical contact and in the probelog file the max value, but of course not the right value.
Can I correct / interpolate that manually and use the probefile thereafter ?

Hessel

[Hessel Oosten]

And last (may be ... question:

3. As far as I can see: the probelog file has NO extension.
When I want to open it (e.g. with Notepad) WinXP always asks me which editor I want to use.
I choose Notepad every time, but .. (I presume because the file has no extension, e.g. txt) Windows doesn't give me the opportunity to tell it, that I ALWAYS want Notepad. Asterisk in that menu is grayed out here.
This probably are explanations of a beginner, may be it can be made more easy ?

Hessel

[daedelus]

I think this guide will help a lot in answering your questions http://www.autoleveller.co.uk/autoleveller-guide/ (about halfway down the page)

Essentially though, if you check the box marked 'create probe file only' then you can probe and log without milling, then feed that log file back into AL where the calculations are done within AL itself which avoids having to re-probe multiple times.

To resume etching / milling from anywhere in the file you will need to provide a single reference point to reset your Z (this can be any point which is not isolated) See the guide for further details.

As far as file extensions are concerned, i think in Mach 3 you will need to type the file extension when the dialog box appears (e.g. myProbeFile.txt not myProbeFile) then it should open in notepad every time, and yes its perfectly fine to over-right the previous log.

Please feel free to ask if there is anything unclear here or in the guide.

[Hessel Oosten]

James,

Many thanks fore the patient explanation.
I was suffering form the IKIA-syndrome... .

(IKIA = I know it all from before and earlier versions....).

When starting with new software you do study the manuals, but I learned that to do -also- with upgrades.

Hessel

[daedelus]

No problem Hessel,

I too suffer from this IKEA syndrome a lot but the guide may not be 100% clear anyway so let us know if theres anything confusing there.

[bront]

The guide says to refer to the table of probe data...
I don't get the table of probed data at the top of my GCode - V0.8.5 or 0.9.0
Should it be there? I am using Mach3 output.
Thanks

[Country_Bubba]

bront,
Sorry for the delay responding, but had to do some digging myself.
I have never used that feature so it took a bit to dig it up. But it appears the whole probe table was eliminated in the AE versions!

I believe that it is no longer necessary as the new autolevel procedure for manipulation of the Gcode file is also different. Also, I am not fluent in Mach but understand it doesn't like "run from here" so I am not sure how you would do it.

I will leave that to James to answer but remember he is in London UK so it will be at least in the morning before he answers.

Regards

[bront]

Thanks for the reply,
I always do 2 stage Autolevelling partly because of multiple milling processes on the one surface but also so that I CAN stop and resume the program (to fine tune cut depth by entering an altered Z in the DRO).
I thought Autoleveller's first probe point would ALWAYS be Z=0mm? But in the RPF it isn't, don't know why.
Maybe the GCode produced should include a Z=0 point in the header text so we can reset the tool height after a breakage.

[daedelus]

Art is correct, the online guide refers to the older Autoleveller and not AutolevellerAE and AE no longer produces this table. I hope to write a separate guide for AE at some point, but I think this will take a while to do a fully comprehensive job of this guide and I am still making fairly big changes to AE. So, just bear in mind for now that this guide is for Autoleveller and not AutolevellerAE although much of what it says stands for both.

There are a couple of reasons why AE no longer shows the table...

1. The table is like a reproduction of your RPF (albeit nicely formatted), so it seemed like a big waste of space to re-print the values in the levelled file if you already have the RPF to hand. (I will re-add the table if you think it will be useful)

2. If you want to stop and resume (like I do as well) you could always touch off Z to 0 when the tool is at the XY of the first probe assuming that XY is not isolated by your previous routing now.

I thought Autoleveller's first probe point would ALWAYS be Z=0mm? But in the RPF it isn't, don't know why.

Not sure either, ask Artsoft, it is always very close to 0 though. I would still use the value in the RPF rather than dead 0 just to be more accurate.

[bront]

Thanks James. I'll check the first probe point on my next run, I may have been mistaken if you say it should be near enough to 0. Writing guides does take ages, I fully sympathise. I will be writing up our Science Club "Illuminated Necklace" project in the coming weeks, including your AutoLeveller magic, at www.scienceclub.org.au
Cheers from Oz