Z axis command all by it's own!

[letterman7]

Hi all,
I'm not on here much. Had my PRT for probably 15 years now and really haven't had any issue. But I don't use it much, either. Of course, now I have a job in house that I have to cut quite a bit of material and the Bot is giving me a weird issue.
I've zero'd the table coordinates and zero'd all axis. I get my Z zero from sight - the aluminum touch off plate hasn't worked in years.. So, with everything zeroed, I start the program for the file. And the Z axis will rise to 1.7" above safe Z and stay there. I have no idea how that command got in there and I have no idea how to remove it and have the carriage travel where it's supposed to.

Ideas, shortcuts so I can get this job started?

Rick

[letterman7]

Ok, I think it's purely user error. I just checked my Z zero - where it actually takes the Z point - and it was set to the table and not the material surface. The material I'm cutting is 1" thick, so the jog height would make sense. I'll reset the zero setting after this first sheet of material; I worked around it by setting the start point 1" lower.

[Brady Watson]

Why not hook your plate back up? You just need a wire to input 1 (the one that goes to the plate) and a ground from the machine to gnd in the control box.

Then run ShopBot Setup (TS command in later versions of SB3) to input the exact thickness of the plate. Then C2 command should work for you.

-B

[letterman7]

For some reason I think that input burned out Brady. It hasn't worked in quite a while. Eyeballing it is a little easier and somewhat faster for me anyway :-) I really need to update the system at some point in time but right now the work isn't there to warrant it.

[tlempicke]

If you have the surface set to the table instead of the top of the block the way to correct that is to open the drawing, change the material setup and then select "Recalculate all tool paths". The way you are doing it works but will come back and bite you sooner or later.
It really is a lot faster and easier to make the machine work like it should than invent work arounds. Take Brady's advice!