I’ve recently bought a “normally closed “ tool setter with 4 wires, from amazon that’s had very good reviews and I’m in the process of wiring this to a 5 pin Din, Off course buying from amazon it doesn’t come with any instructions.
Before soldering to the din connector I wanted to run my wiring past the forum. Tonight I used a multimeter to identify the following wires, orange/brown work the tool setter switch while the blue/green work the over travel switch.
Researching online has the orange/brown connect to pin 4 & 5, what pins would the over travel attach to? or should I not bother with this, as I have seen some guys online don’t use this function?
If anyone has installed the tool setter in the link above and can shed some light on this I’d be very grateful.
I only connected the main switch and it’s been fine. Note that the order of the pins on the DIN connector is a bit goofy so double-check that. Also what you have it set to (active/passive) in PP changes the operation from N/C to N/O.
I don’t have the exact same one but a very similar one (the black and silver variant). The NC ETS definitely works on my 440. You should also be able to connect a NC touch probe with both of them connected in series with either one going open during the selected probe routine…if you have the ETS plugged and attempt to probe…you will probably be spending more money when you did not intend to…
The two pins that are NC which go open when the ETS is pressed go to the appropriately numbered DIN pins. I have pointed folks to the Tormach passive probe document for pin numbering and which pins are which, as Roy has said, the numbering differs depending on if you are talking about the probe plug or the machine DIN plug and which side you are referencing.
The other pair are for over travel. They are meant to be connected to a CNC machine in the e-Stop chain so that if the first trigger fails, then the second one is failsafe and will stop all movement because continued movement is going to break the tool being measured or the machine.
They are a no-go from what I have found on the 440, because the e-Stop circuit is mains AC voltage and those contacts are only rated for 24V DC.
The thing I came up with, that isn’t 100% assured to stop motion, but makes logical sense, is to wire that pair into the Z-axis limit switch input, which I haven’t checked, but I believe is also NC for the same reason (safety). This assumes the ETS is reasonably well made that it has a distinct measure switch point and the “danger” one is further where it won’t trigger all the time during a tool measurement.
IDK for sure in this case, but often CNC limits are an NC series chain as a way to simplify the wiring. The machine knows which direction it is moving and uses that to decide which of the limits was hit.
The overtravel switch is indeed beyond the trigger position on the setter I have.
Having spent a lot of time digging into this for the ETS and probe wiring, the engineering principle behind using NC is if there is a fault in the wiring at the start of movement, it will be immediately detected (switch is open, power rail failure in the circuit, wiring damaged, went open, wire disconnected) and e-Stop is immediately triggered. If it is NO, then any of those failures can happen and you don’t know until you reach the mechanical limit, the switch won’t fire/failure is present and the machine will continue to drive the servo and the mechanism into the mechanical damage territory the switch intends to protect.
They use one switch in the middle of X and Y with two physical bumpers at the ends that actuate it which can be adjusted in/out at each end. You know which axis has reached a limit if each axis limit switch has a separate input. On a 440, X and Y are wired in series to the same input, so it knows which based upon having homed correctly and what X or Y value is not in the programmed known travels for the axes. Z does get a separate input…which is why I was thinking, without having to build out a DC circuit with a relay to interrupt the mains AC (110/220V) for the ETS over travel, that putting another NC switch inline with Z-axis would be the logical place to wire it.
Thank you kindly for all the input to my thread. I followed the wiring diagram and successfully soldered the Din connector and its now working a treat!!!
I did the same last weekend with the same ets. I also bought some din sockets, and small plastic jbox, wired the din sockets in series so I can leave the ets & tormach passive probe plugged in all the time. If I need to unplug one of them I made a jumper din plug to put in the place of what I unplugged. Works great & im surprised how much more accurate the ets is over the height gauge.
…small plastic jbox, wired the din sockets in series so I can leave the ets & tormach passive probe plugged in all the time. If I need to unplug one of them I made a jumper din plug to put in the place of what I unplugged.
I saw someone else did similar but they converted the ETS and Probe connector into their junction box into audio jacks instead of DIN connectors, because the style they used, the jack in the joint box would automatically short across the desired terminals when nothing was plugged in…
Set Z zero on 123 block. Put tool in spindle. Move block out of the way, move Z to 0. Slide 123 block under. Step Z up or down to get to get q23 block to just slide under. Tske note of Z delta. Use tool ets on that same tool under a different tool number. Then go back to Z0 and slide 123 block under tool and jog Z up or down to get 123 block to just slide under. Compare.
I found that my manual tormach height gauge I some tools I had to jog Z down 1-2 thou for 123 block to drag. Ets I had to job up 0.0001-0.0002 to get 123 block to slide under and just drag. The height of the manual height gauge can flex. And depending how hard you press down on the tool would throw off tool length.
Background, I have worked in industrial environment for long time. I am VERY familiar with precision measurement. I’ve worked in mechanical/machine shops & I’ve been an instrumentation & controls tech. So its not that im sloppy with my manual measurements. But with all manual forms of measurements there is a feel you have to develop. Ive worked on projects where 1 person takes measurements to keep the human error consistent.
I had extra din plugs, so making a jumper plug is easy & consistant woth factory setup. Iordered everything off Amazon including the ets for about $60.
Now I have both probe & ets plugged in at all times.
I too have a similar tool setter. Typically, the over travel contacts are connected to the E-stop circuit so all movement stops in the event that these contacts are opened. I did not connect them on this mill.
With the method I explained you are using the mill as the 3rd measurement/comparitor device.
There will always be error in any form of measurement, its just a mater of degree.
For fun, zero your Z axis 3” above the table with a 123 block were it will just drag/slide under the tool. Now switch tools and move to Z zero for the new tool and see if you have the same drag. Switch tools again. You will see how consistent your measurements are. Sure you can argue that the machine may introduce some error, but in my experience that error insignificant. All forms of measurement have error, its just a mater of degree. We can only do so much within reason & are trying to find the thing that is low & consistent error so we can work from that.
I forgot to mention that another option I was thinking of for the over-travel contacts is that you can connect them to the door safety latch circuit. If the contacts are broken the system will think the door has been opened and stop all motion. I looked at the schematic for the 1500mx but I have not wired it yet.
I believe the over travel contacts are NO. so that won’t work. For this particular ets. I dontnuse the over travel contacts. Im just to lazy to wire it into the e-stop. To wire it in & make it look nice will take some work. I just babysit the e-stop when using the ets.
I looked at a few of them from different sources before buying the one that I did, out of convenience, from Amazon, as well, and I don’t recall seeing one where the trigger is NC and the eStop is NO, but it’s possible given they are mass produced overseas under so many labels. Anyone integrating one of these SHOULD test both sets of leads with a multimeter before wiring it up and then test it on a “non-destructive” moves before probing. IIRC, you also need to test with just the over travel terminals connected (PP would issue a probe trip if you are in motion and the probe trips when it isn’t in a probing cycle) to see that it does what you expect it to do in that condition depending upon how you are going to integrate the over travel (via eStop or Z axis limits).
I am of the mind that if I can’t trust my axes limit circuitry, then I can’t trust the machine at all. I think that’s where mine is going given I have 110VAC on the eStop on the 440 and having to add another relay (additional failure point) to put it in the eStop circuit.
For both methods, if you unplug it, you have to have a jumper plug to restore the NC circuit you are integrating into.
One note with wiring it into the eStop is that if you actually do trip the over travel, you will need a “get out jail” method, as your machine will be stuck in eStop due to the ETS. Easiest way I can see is that you have to unplug it and bypass in order to restore power to motion control and resolve the eStop condition.
If wired into the Z axis, then your recovery is uncheck “limit switches” in the GUI, jog up and then investigate why the probe input didn’t trip.
I’m sort of out of room on my 440 ‘s DIN rail with all the other stuff as part of my upgrades which is also a factor in thinking to use Z-axis. I have a thin SSR like that second one for my probe to minimize actuation time but SSR doesn’t have the DT function needed for NC…that one may do the trick. Thanks for pointing that out!