Automated Z probing

[Jorropo]

Hello I am trying to find an autonomous way to find the Z coordinates of fiducials and components.

I've found https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/wiki/Z-Probing.

Are there examples of real setups ?

Otherwise do someone have an opinion on this idea:

Add a 1D laser lidar scanner to the tool head.

I&S capture could skew and offsets with a pyramid with a different color tip.
The tip to center it with the top camera.
For the skew it could capture a plus pattern and differentiate it to find the slope.
Repeat until we find the tip.

Then given we would know the shape of the pyramid we could get the delta Z X cm in each axis to get the skew.
Finally get the Z offset by capturing the Z of something with a known reference Z like the home fiducial.

[simpl...@tuta.io]

Out of sheer laziness, i've been using a displacement sensor (HG-C1030) on my machines for many years. This allows me to adjust the fids and feeders quickly and precisely and i don't want to miss out on this luxury anymore.

[Jorropo]

It looks exactly like what I want to do.

Could you please share a picture ? It look like a serious bit of kit, I was thinking some lidar SoC or IC altho the easily findable ones have mm accuracy so basically unusable.

[simpl...@tuta.io]

These panasonic laser sensors (cost about $100) with a measuring range of 30 mm have an inaccuracy of approximately +/-10 µm, which is quite precise, provided you don't use a junk ADC, as most MCUs have internally.

This is what my connection via SPI to the head controller looks like: