Since I got the new EX controller setup homing, I took a quick moment to try and set up my probe on the machine, since I had that working with Mach4.
In the wizard, I can define my probe, but it tells me to hook it up to Aux5. There is no Aux5. Only Aux3 and Aux4. I think these two are reserved for the Laser system?
How do I go about hooking up a Probe? For the moment I’d be happy to use Aux3 or Aux4 for this, since I don’t currently have any plans for a laser.
Cheers,
Eric
What probe do you have? I may be able to get you some detail if I can see what the wiring is like on your probe.
I have one of these.
Currently it is wired through a small circuit that converts it to normally open using a transistor.
I will likely need to change the wiring I expect.
I see there is some detail on acorns site at
But it is not clear to me how this maps to the wiring in the EX controller.
Any hints on how to connect to aux 5 or use another port much appreciated.
Cheers,
Eric
Looking at a pic I took of the interior of the controller while I was tracking down by servo fault problem, I can see I just need to mount a new aviation panel plug on the aux5 slot and wire it to the breakout board. Seems like I just need to know which terminal blocks are the right ones for Aux5 and I am set.
Cheers,
Eric
Wiring up a probe is pretty easy. You correctly identified that the Aux 5 port needs a plug put into it. We use A coded 4 pin male M12s. You can buy them from us or on Amazon pretty easily.
In terms of wiring the probe after you have some sort of plug: Our breakout board (or what we call the “interconnect board”) doesn’t have any probe connections on it. You would wire the probe right up to the Acorn itself.
Your probe looks like it’s pretty simple in that all it’s doing is shorting an input to ground to read the signal. If you want some probe wiring examples there are lots here:
https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_diy/schematics/pbrowse.php?term=probe
In terms of setting up the software side of the probe we left all of Centroids stock probe menus in place in our wizard, they are under the “probe” section.
You can configure your probe there, and since we didn’t touch that UI all of the Centroid documentation related to probes will be relevant.
You will need to switch over to the “Advanced” side of the configuration to set a probe input. “Advanced” is just the Centroid stock settings menu, so their probe setup guide will help you here.
One feature I would recommend enabling: Probe protection by tool number. Since it looks like you have a “simple” two wire probe, this feature will lock out the spindle when you have the probe’s tool number active. It will also limit jog speed.
Perfect, that looks pretty straight forward. I even have a spare M12 plug in my electronics project box. I think I can rig up a circuit that does the probe detection as well when I plug the probe into the 3.5mm jack in a little external circuit box.
I gather I just wire directly to input6 for the probe detect, and input7 for the probe trigger signal, doubling up with what I presume are already the wires for the touch plate and the tool setter? Or should I look for an unused inputs?
Also, when I switch over to the advanced wizard, does that keep the various settings that the avid wizard builds, just in more detail or do I have to worry about setting up everything else in that case? It wasn’t clear to me when I toggled over to that when I was trying to figure out the VFD fault issue.
Cheers,
Eric
Partly answering my own questions here. I looked at the advanced config, and I can see that the tool setter is normally closed, and is input 5, while the touch plate is normally open on input 4. The default for the probe is input 8.
The combined inputs tells me input 7 is also not assigned right now.
Input 6 is listed as DriveOk, and I can see watching the board lights when I trigger the machine that after a reset this circuit closes.
I do see there are wires going to each of the 8 inputs right now, although I can’t see where they go deeper inside the control box.
I have two questions:
Where do you recommend I pick up the common line on the board? Directly from the common at the 24 volt power block on the main acorn board? Is there somehwere else I can get to the same common, or do I pull a wire all the way across the control box and double up on the terminal?
It appears inputs 7 and 8 are effectively unused by the configuraiton right now, and I could use those for the probe detect circuit and the probe triggered circuit. [These also appear to be the only two inputs that are not being used]. There are, however wires going into these inputs. Do you recommend I just double up on the wires going into these screw terminals and leave these wires in place, or shoud I cap off those wires and put my new circuit in place instead?
I don’t know where the wires currently attached to those terminals are going and what they are doing. I can’t immediately trace them without starting to take things apart.
Cheers,
Eric
Input 8 is reserved for the touch probe and you can pick that right up at the Acorn board. Common is tied to ground so you can ground to any metal part on the control box. There’s a ground lug on the door that would work if you don’t want to dig into terminal blocks.
Thanks Eric,
Looks easy enough. Is 7 reserved? If not I would like to use it for the probe installed detect. The extra protection seems worth a bit.
Will give it a spin in a few days when I have a moment.
Cheers,
Eric
7 is used for plasma machines so it’s free to use for that function if you would like.
Wired this up tonight, and it works a treat. I put the probe on 8 and the probe detect on 7, and everything appears to work the way it should.
Did a quick check of the x-axis alignment at the table center by probing my fixed pin locations, and the table seems close to square, but I should do the check properly with diagonals. The probe check indicates it’s out maybe 0.003".
A quick cycle of home, probe, home, probe a few times would appear to show that the machine comes back to the same location at home within less than 0.001", and can return to the probed home centered on one of my pin bores within 0.001’ in X and Y.
So, next steps align squareness, tram the spindle and the tool setter, and then redo my spoilboard routine to deal with the existence of the tool setter safely.
Looks like I should be back in business pretty soon.
Cheers,
Eric
That’s awesome! I think once you get the hang of it you’ll find probing to be quite awesome in Centroid.
Have you calibrated your probe with a gauge ring yet?
I have not taken the time yet, but I have one and plan to do so before I do any real work with it.
So far I can tell that the routines are just cleaner than the Mach4 ones. I had probing cycles fail quiet often with Mach4.
Thanks for the pointers on getting this wired up.
Cheers,
Eric
The probing routines are very good in centroid. Recommendation: practice with all of them by just tapping the probe to trigger it. This will ensure you have it setup right and get you familiar with the routines.