That’s a pretty cool device. Some people may not think it’s needed however I think it’s a great idea. I guess I kind of geek out on all things mechanical. If you are able to make a program to map out the spoil board I can see where that would be really helpful to just shave off what is needed. This would take some guess work out of how much to remove. Spoil board would likely last a little longer.
I had a shower epiphany that this should work great for auto Z leveling. It is possible that bed probing would show Z being out of level. This would allow it to adjust Z level and retest multiple times without human interaction until it reached some threshold.
I’m also curious how consistent Z level is across the Y axis.
I was also thinking that an actual flat spoilboard and what is flat for cutting purposes can and likely is two different things. You could surface your entire spoilboard giving consistent Z cutting depth but the bed still isn’t flat if checked with a straight edge, especially along the Y axis. I’m not entirely sure what this fact does for me. It might mean that ideally you would try and make the bed flat with a long straight edge via shimming and then check with what I’m creating. That’s probably more in the weeds than I need to care about.
I recently had to improve my table’s flatness by shimming, I used like 2 packs of playing cards before I 3D printed some blocks of various thicknesses which was a lot more efficient. I checked for flatness with a level and a light shining behind it. It’s a big improvement but not perfect… the idea of doing it again sounds miserable lol but if I had your table probe, it could just tell me the exact locations to shim and by how much! Or just shave it down flat for me. And I could sleep at night if I knew it was actually flat haha. Just my 2 cents, I think it’s brilliant ![]()
With my new table on wheels, I could benefit from a test to see if it is still flat enough or if it got out of wack if I move it. Or heck even where the lowest point is to start the surfacing from there.
Being flat along Y, still doesn’t matter to me because I never put anything thick enough to matter. I do see how it could matter for slab milling though. All boils down to your use cases.
I surfaced my new table and I have a fraction of a mm low spot right at the front still, but took off probably 1.5mm at the most at the far end. I knew I was going to be cutting some dado’s so I took the hour and some change to do it.
Not wishing to hijack this thread at all - I have been watching with great interest but I think my understandascope needs new batteries!
Is this a summary of what you are trying to achieve, plus a bit more? I thought when I watched it - “It’s a shame he hasn’t written that for FluidNC” Then I remembered this thread and thought it was time for a Midge troll! The engraving at the end does impress my tiny mind.
That has a different end goal than I do but very interesting. I said early on I didn’t plan on modifying gcode or using a 3d probe. There is a lot of crossover though.
I am in the same boat. I know some people really want this stuff but I think there are better ways around this that complicating it with all this probing. The only time I can see this being truly useful is current part location, for alterations, something I have never really needed to do.
I like the idea of getting a quick idea of the surface so I can know when to surface and where the lowest spot is.
I have no idea how complicated map to 3d transforms are to gcode but I am impressed that this seems to be fully functional.
If you used Estlcam as a controller… Cough (it’s been a feature in there for years…) ![]()
Someone just has to get the WiFi going. ![]()
Saw your video. Amazing ![]()
You can use any sender with wifi and the jackpot. Ive been running my laser this way since my first jackpot board. (It works just fine, no connection issues with lightburn)
Not “ mine” of course, but yes!