CompUCut
The Digitising Probe
We offer a ready made switching probe (fig 1) which will digitise a 2-D edge profile such as a clock plate or a custom motorcycle engine plate etc. with a repeatability of better than 0.02mm. The absolute accuracy will depend on the accuracy of your machine when driving the probe around the profile. The template material can be any available sheet from thin plywood to sheet metal.
Fig 1 - 2D Switching Digitising Probe
The software / instructions have been on the CompUCut 'Toolkit' disk for years to enable the DIY making of both solid and switching probes allowing digitising from both conducting and insulating templates. The probe is supplied with its software disk which runs on any PC with a floppy drive and saves the resulting file in AutoCad standard HPGL of the form PA123,456; which is then ready to load straight into CompUCut for routing.
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The probe has 1.5 metres of cable which connect into the status port of the parallel port which is usually used by CompUCut for limit switches. When used with the CompUCut interface the probe does not need any other power supply as the limit terminals 7, 8, 9 and 10 are pulled up to 5v on the interface. The probe is well engineered for long term accuracy, the body is machined from Brass and the internals are hardened Steel and Phosphor Bronze. The machine mounting is a hardened and ground 2 Morse taper shank suitable for a mill. For use on a router the body has an alloy sleeve 43mm diameter (standard Euro collar) to fit into any router stand such as the Wolfcraft (fig 2). The scanning resolution is programmable but the resolution set needs to be several times greater than the backlash in the machine slides. The probe is 6mm dia tapped M4 to take any size probing tip required. For simplest use the user digitises with a probe tip equal in diameter to the cutter to be used for profiling. Click here for the price guide. |
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