I know it‘s possible to find the middle of a round shape in Estlcam, but is it also possible to find the middle of a hole with a 3D probe by probing the insides of the hole?
There is no difference between a round part and a round hole when it comes to finding the center.
Oh, you are right. I just went from the picture… Sometimes it’s so easy you don’t think about it… ![]()
While I have you here: If I did 2-sided machining with 0 in the middle, I could basically flip it over and move it wherever I wanted if I then zero it again (without rotating the workpiece when changing the location).
Yes - you can move the part anywhere after flipping it over if you zero it again.
This is actually independent of choice of origin - origin in center just has the benefit of staying in the same place for both top and bottom side.
For other origins like left / front the origin just needs to be flipped together with the material e.g. to right / front.
I rarely use center except for round parts.
For square parts corners are much quicker to touch off - while center needs a point at the back of the material which is hard so see properly.
Oh, that is even smarter. I never considered Estlcam being able to not only touch bottom left but bottom right as well.
So you are saying I could, for the first program, touch bottom left with twist (Verdrehung), and for the second program bottom right with twist? That would be even better, then you could chuck it basically anywhere in any orientation. At the moment I am using dowel pins for two-sided machining, with 3D that does not work too well though because it would be an extra step.
Thanks a lot Christian.
Will try this as soon as my probe is here.
Version 12 automatically detects the edge you touched off.
Version 11 can only do left / front.
Still a good idea to verify the origin by moving the machine to XY=0 (e.g. by entering “XY” in the command line) after touching off. The edge detection depends on the movements the machine made before contact with an edge. In tight spaces where there was very little movement towards the edges or if you moved too far and backed off too much a wrong edge may be detected.
Yes.
Edge with twist angle compensation is also my personal preference. I just slap the workpiece on the machine and don’t care about orientation at all. The twist compensation is way quicker than trying to align the workpiece properly - and it is very accurate.
Man, you really made Estlcam a brilliant controller.
Really happy I stuck with it. What is missing a bit are written docs that explain all the features, but I know how hard that is. I am writing the explanations for features of our school’s tablets and it’s a pain… ![]()
@dalrun has got some explanations in English, but they are far from complete: Dave Lers : Workshop : CNC : Estlcam.