z zero plate problem

[louisf46]

Hi Guys,
This is my 1st post although i joined a while ago. Have a bunch of project
photos to upload, but haven't gotten to it. Lymes disease is kicking my butt and i'm not getting half the things done that i should. That's another story.

Anyway, here's my problem:
I'm running the shopot table surfacer routine. I z zero using the plate, and when the router retracts it retracts higher than what the safe z is set to in the software. It seems to be retracting up to to the safe z setting(1 inch) plus the thickness of the z zero plate, so when i go to cut the file, the tool bit is running the thickness of the z zero plate above my material.

I have an older PRT Standard 48 x 96 w/ porter cable motor.
Software version 3.6.16 I have had the machine several years and haven't had this happen before. I'm far from being an expert with the machine and software, I usually just design in Aspire, bring it into Shopbot software and let er rip. Any help greatly appreciated.
Lou

[jerry_stanek]

open your shopbot software and under the tools tab there is a shopbot setup. you can input the thickness of your plate in there so when you run the zeroing file it will adjust to the plate.

[louisf46]

Wow, that was fast Jerry.
Anyway, I did what you suggested earlier today, and if I recall the measurement listed there was 0.121, which is what the plate miked
when I first got the machine. Maybe I will plug in a different value just to see if anything changes, and if it does I will go back to the original value.
At this point I don't know what else to do.
I will have to wait until morning since my machine is at our shop in town and its snowing/sleet right now and the roads the roads are too treacherous.

Thanks again for the lightening fast reply!

Lou

[myxpykalix]

Not sure what is going on with the surfacing file but you might take whatever file creation program you use and try making a surfacing routine with it, cutting down however deep you are wanting in the size of your table.

[bill.young]

As a quick check to see if the problem is with your z-zeroing routine or the surfacing routine, try running the z-zero routine and when it's finished enter a "MZ,0" command and see if the bit moves down to just touch the table surface.

If it does then the Z-zero routine is working correctly and the problem is most likely with the Surfacer setup. If it doesn't zero correctly then you'll know that the z-zero routine is where to look.

[louisf46]

Thanks Jack, Bill, and all. I will try out your suggestions and post a follow up.