Before I purchase the SB link

[michael_schwartz]

The link will walk you through the each tool change, and give you an opportunity to zero the bit if necessary.

I zero to the bed of the machine (aka the spoil board). Once you start doing it this way you will never want to zero to the top of the material again. When zeroing to the bed you do not need to worry about minor variations in thickness within the material, small differences from one sheet to another.

For an off table reference I use a small vacuum puck to hold my z-zero plate nice and tight. My Z-Zero routine is setup to automatically go to this location. (roughly x=2 - y=-1.25)
a
I made this the same size as my Z-Zero plate. I put a piece of trupan on top to act as a mini bleeder board board. I modified my table surfacing routine to surface this puck so that it is the exact same height as my table. When using a 1-1.25" bit I have to cheat a little and flush up the last 1/8" on the righthand side with a chisel (easier done than said)

I hooked it up to the plumbing for my table with polyurethane tubing from the hardware store. I was going to install a knife valve but The vacuum leakage doesn't even show up on my gauge . I am only using a pair of lighthouse 110v motors any i do not notice any loss from this.


ZZERO PUCK 1 .jpgZZEROPUCK2.jpg

[sbd1]

Thanks Mike. I'm still struggling with getting mine setup correctly to zero to the bed, but I understand the virtues of it. I've built a similar fixed zero plate block at 35,-1.25 that gets surfaced with my spoilboard (remove the plate before hand). Here's a pic.

Next time, after this spoilboard is finished, I'll mount the plate permanently in an off-table block below the spoilboard & use an offset in the file so that I don't have to surface this block each time I surface the spoilboard.

[michael_schwartz]

Don't hesitate to call tech support if you are having trouble.

[sbd1]

Mike. In your previous pics I noticed that you had the grounding clip on the router mount rather than on the bit. Is that where you usually clip it?

I've been reading about grounding without the clip on the bit & I've also done a few tests & I've come to the conclusion that grounding to anything other than the bit is not reliable - for me at least. Between the router bearings & brushes it wasn't always grounding when I clipped elsewhere.

[michael_schwartz]

I have never had trouble and for whatever reason it seems to work for me. Thus I choose to do this at my own risk.

I would recommend following the instructions provided by ShopBot. I believe that they recommend attaching the grounding clip to the bit.