Converting a Tormach passive touch probe to wireless operation

[@grappler185]

Thank You so much for posting this!!! I've had your kit sitting in a drawer for over 6 months, because I was intimidated to set it up. If you could make videos that walk us through all the other parts, that would be GREAT!

[@daleksw]

It's certainly not supposed to sit in a drawer! What other bits of setup would you want help with? I'm always happy to help people use my gear, so just ask and I'll see what I can do.

[@Andyhoots]

i have our wirelesskit or the older black tormach probe. i will be purchasing the newer stainless steele passive probe . will i be able to use thew kit i have for the black probe for the stainlesss one when i get it? i not, what all do i need to purchase? an entire new kit?

[@daleksw]

Hi Andy. The only difference between the 2 kits is the dimensions of the box that mounts to the probe body. The new Tormach probe is a few mm smaller in diameter and the new probe has an 8mm cable gland instead of 10mm on the old one. To help you, I've added another 3 variants to the wireless probe kit listing in the shop which provides just the box. If you order one, I'll have a search around and find out if I can find cheaper shipping as my usual DHL will be very expensive for something that small and light.

[@Andyhoots]

@@daleksw WOW! That was fast. Nice customer support! I really appreciate that. I just checked. Shipping is a bit much for something small and light. But it’s well worth it. No worries on finding a cheaper solution. Dhl will work. I ll be ordering that next week. Thanks again. And love your product. I purchased a complete 1100 package deal. With a probe outfitted with your wireless kit. Few days after When I purchased. I come in the shop and hear this awful beeping noise. I’m thinking what’s wrong with the mill. Took a minute to realize the box is where the noise was coming from. Due to low battery 😂. Really awesome product!

[@clerontechnologies8190]

Woow great work!!!Kudos. What micro-controller and battery are you using. What is the mode of transmission? bluetooth?Rf?

[@daleksw]

Radio module is a RFM96 LoRA on one of the Feather series controllers. Battery is 1s, 380mAh. The hard bit is achieving always on operation - no need to wiggle the probe to wake it up - and still getting well over 1 week between charging

[@clerontechnologies8190]

@@daleksw " The hard bit is achieving always on operation - no need to wiggle the probe to wake it up - and still getting well over 1 week between charging" How did you manage to do that i.e always on during operation? Does the probe shut itself down after 5-10minutes of inactivity? If it does then how does the probe wake itself up when the machine turns on without the wiggling the probe?

[@daleksw]

@@clerontechnologies8190 When the mill's turned off, the probe spots no reply to 'pings', so goes into deep sleep, but retries every 30s or so to spot the mill being turned on. The battery lasts several weeks like this. It then works at medium responsiveness until the first probe touch. It runs at best res for ~15s after that so the 2nd, slow probe is very accurate. No touches for 15s and it goes back to the medium power saving but still sends pings to the Rx every 30s to check it's still turned on. So long as the probe software runs double touch cycles - as PathPilot does, the results will always be good.

[@PowerSports]

@@daleksw Is it possible to setup Fusion360 to run double touch cycles?

[@daleksw]

@@PowerSports It's not really Fusion's responsibility. It's the probing macros on the mill that do that part. If you're using PathPilot, then both the built in UI probing and the Fusion360 WCS probing cycles all perform a double touch.

[@AlexK07010]

Hi David. Do you have a video on ittp conversion process?

[@daleksw]

Hi Alex. I don't have any videos of the ITTP I'm afraid. If you have one, Cliff will already have sent you links to his maintenance videos that show how to dismantle his probe. One of them shows how to remove and replace the main cable. For the ITTP, I supply a replacement loom, so you remove the original cable and its pogo pins as shown in the video and just replace it with mine. No soldering required! As Cliff notes, the loom has to be shaped to fit and it is fragile enough that it is possible to break the solder joints if you're not careful. For that reason, I also supply sufficient spares so you can make another, should the one I supply get damaged.

[@AlexK07010]

@@daleksw good point. totally forgot about the videos. thank you