I’ve had a few issues with the auto Z Touch plate where the bit doesn’t register on the z axis. Rather unsettling when it happens! After reading a few posts describing similar issues, I decided to take a look inside the touch plate to see if there are any obvious electrical issues. I removed the 4 screws, but the 2 halves seem to be tightly fused together. I’m reluctant to force anything apart without further guidance. Would anyone who has dissembled one of these things be able to give me any advice?
inside there is just a spring pushing against both brass plates. I’ve had both of mine apart, one wire is grounded to the case the other is truncated. Yes it is disturbing when the bit keeps coming down, in my case it was loose ground.
@Bstanga, When you say loose ground, do you mean that you found the screw holding the lug to the case backed out, or some other issue? I ask since I’ve had the problem and after seeing this, tonight I went down and dissasembled the touch plate on the machine here and everything “seems” to be okay.
Thanks for posting the pictures by the way!
-Kenneth
everytime I use the touch plate, I alway do a quick test. I attach the magnet and just hold the touch plat to the bit to see the green indicator on mach, then I know the connection is there. Only take a second, and it\s good to know it’s working before you jam a bit through it
on one the screw had backed out causing intermittent issue, the other the ground wire broke off the crimp connector. To reassemble I put 1 screw in and snug it and it will overcome the spring and allow the other screws to be installed
Another cause of problems with these is the copper wire cracking inside the insulator on the magnet wire. They get bent a lot in use and can crack inside and make it intermittent. I replaced my wire with a heavier gauge, but finer strands wire, and then put two layers of heat shrink in the last couple inches by the magnet where it kept breakings. Seems to have lasted much longer this way.
@jjneeb, Now that I’m actively digging into this issue after all this time of just not using it, I’ll ring this thing out while flexing that wire around in all sorts of ways and see if I an detect intermittent contact by that means. Thank you for the suggestion of an additional piece to check.
