[Firmware][Software] Adjusting Z Auto Leveling/Homing space

[Joco]

I started trying to test auto levelling/z-homing today and hit a problem.  How to tell either Marlin or CNC-GCode-Controller WHERE the defined working area is located within the total available X/Y space available to the mill.

You home the X and Y axis, all good, the mill now has its 0,0 position and in Marlin knows from this position the max X/Y it can travel.  However when you have the plastic PCB clamps in place how do you tell (either via the controller software I am using or the firmware) what it should be doing to calculate where the ACTUAL PCB will be located? And essentially treat that as a "soft" X/Y Home point for further activity.

At the moment when i run CNC-GCode-Controllers autoleveling routine it tries to start the first probe at X11,Y11 which sends the milling bit straight into the pcbs-clamps plastic, no z-enstop contact, motors stressing, frantic hitting of power switches, swear-words etc etc.   What is doubly screwy is that CNC-GCode-Controller's autoleveling GUI says the probe area starts at 20,20.  I adjust that to 40,40 with no impact.  It still starts at 11,11.

Short of Coming up with a way to put the X/Y endstops on a sliding "arms" so I can manually adjust the X/Y home points to be correct to where the PCB is located (which seems a bit naff) since you need to do such a recalibration for every different sized bit of milling stock (PCB, wood, perspex etc) you placed on the mill.

What am I missing people?

Cheers,

James.

[Carlos García]

Ouch, sorry for that! You can fine-tune the origin in the settings tab:

This is used also for "tool-zeroing".

The name of the setting is a bit off, but I didn't have the time to modify the interface properly so went for a quick solution to integrate the patches.

The global 0,0 will still be out of bounds, so please try always to do dry-runs to ensure that everything is OK.

Sorry again for any issues this may have caused you.

Regards,

Carlos

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[Carlos García]

Basically every calibration that depends on Z will start with that command in order to always have the same spot as the zero-height reference.

[Joco]

Cool.  I've been out in the garage and hunting mutter "i'm missing something, i'm missing something" and found that setting with a "I wonder ....".   Changed to to X20 Y20 and bingo!   In business!    Auto levelling worked perfectly on my pretend PCB board (3mm MDF covered in tin foil) and I now have a very nice heat map of the probe on up the laptop.

Thanks for the quick response.  I was about to write a "oh good I'm stupid" post.   :-)

Now I need to strap a pen on this thing and do some proofs without worrying about a high speed bit.  But progress is definitely being made!  This weekends main aim of proven auto leveling has been achieved.

Can't wait for the blank PCB stock and milling bits to turn up from eBay. Blank PCB stock is an extortionist price in NZ. 

Cheers.

[Carlos García]

That's great! :D I really like the fact you are using MDF+tin foil, very clever for quickly testing! :-P

For PCB I would recommend using phenolic/paper substrate. FR-1 instead of FR-4 (which has glass fiber in it). I got my boards from:

http://www.conrad.com/ce/en/product/528382/Proma-106100-0160-Uncoated-Base-Material-Single-sided-L-x-W-100-mm-x-160-mm-Thickness-15-mm-Hard-paper

Shipping to NZ from EU must cost quite a lot though...

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[Joco]

The shipping basically means you don't buy from most stores in the EU unless they have actually set themselves up to and really want to ship to the rest of the world.  For that item you listed it will cost me € 44,99 to do shipping.  Doesn't matter if I get one board or up to € 99 worth.

I struggled to find 100x160mm stock.  LOTS of 100x150mm stock available. So I got 100x150 single sided fibreglass boards from HongKong/China for FREE shipping and about 1.7USD per board.  Once I have used that batch I'll see about the style you have suggested if I can source it at a sensible price.