Setting up hard stops and prox on Buddy

I recently purchased a used/never ran 24” Shopboy Buddy from a government auction. I have it setup with power on it and was looking at zeroing the x-y-z axis’ and have a question before I do. I see the hard stops on the Y-axis fastened to the extrusion but they are loose and not in the proper position. Is there a dimension drawing or something as to where they should go. I can’t tell for sure but it looks like the part of the moving carriage that contacts the hard stop is the pinion gear, is that correct or is there something missing? Ramming the gear into a hard stop does not seem right, even if it seldom happens. I guess I then set the prox switch actuators at a position just before the hard stops hit.....Thanks, Mike

One of the great advantages of owning a shopbot is that you can call the tech support people and they will help you. Check out the shopbottools.com website and you should be able to download manuals for your machine if you don't have any from the auction.

I'm not familiar with the 24" buddy so I can't offer more support or detail. The folks at Shopbot tech support are great.

Best...

J

Thanks for the response James. I have all of the manuals as well as watched a multitude of videos but I have not found anything on the positioning of the hard stops and switch dogs. I will send them an email if this forum request does not yield an answer....Thanks

Don't hesitate calling tech support. The folks there are very helpful.

Best...

J

Mirion, You had better call tech support. I have owned a Buddy since 2009 and am very familiar with it, but my machine, as all Buddy's at that time, was shipped fully assembled and adjusted. I don't know if any of us users will be the best source of information for this type of question. But, yes, hitting one of the hard stops with the pinion is not a very good thing to do, and I would avoid this as much as possible, as I know you will. As far as setting the X and Y, that is done in the job setup section of the Vectric software for each job and as long as you place your material on the machine table within it's cutting parameters, you should be OK. Just don't ask the machine to go where it can't because it will try to. I hope this is of some help...joe

Follow the instructions for setting them up in the PRS Gantry Tool Assembly Guide, section 3-6.

The Buddy is a little different, but you essentially want to move the stops all the way out before the YZ car smacks against the gantry side plates and before the table runs out of rack. Just push the tool manually around (slowly as the motors can act as generators) and you'll get the idea.

For the prox switches, adjust the targets (bolt heads) so they are about 1/2" off of the hard stops (adjust so the sensor just starts to eclipse the head of the bolt AND the pinion gear is 1/2" away from hitting the aluminum block. Make sure there is about 1/16" of air between the bolt head and prox switch.

When you're all done, run TS (ShopBot Setup), do the Zzero plate, then prox switches and be SURE to say OK or whatever so the settings stick at the end. Then you can run C3 to home the tool and C2 to zero the Z with the plate.

-B

Thanks everyone for all the help, I am almost ready to start making chips........Mike

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mirion

Thanks everyone for all the help, I am almost ready to start making chips........Mike

---

Here is a biggie for you. Took me a while to get on to.

Those stops are electronic and accurate to within about .002 inches. So therefore each time you do a C3 the carriage will some to an ACCURATE XY position. You can get back to any position on the table with great accuracy if you record what that position was with respect to that C3. this is one of the most useful features you have.

As a for instance;
I keep an accurate fence on my tabletop, usually at about 10 inches of Y travel. To set it up I did a C3 and then moved the Y carriage to 10.125 with a .250 dowel pin in the chuck. Moving the table in the X dimension I slid the stop along side of the pin and staked it down. (it is 36 inches long and about 1/4 inch thick) I then marked the X zero position on the table top in a similar way but just drew a pencil line. When I put a piece of material on the table I have a fence to put it alongside and a mark for the other axis. By doing a C3 then a MY10 then a Z2 command my bit is set at the lower left hand corner of the material AND I CAN MOVE IT BACK THERE WITHIN .002 INCHES!

This save a tremendous amount of time and material during the learning cycle!