Any ideas or thoughts on making a edge finder come touch off tool

[cropwell]

Click, click, durr

http://www.homemetalshopclub.org/new...ation_1202.pdf

[JAZZCNC]

For 3D work these probes are great and inverting the signal is easy enough but just for every day use for setting Z height etc then it becomes a pain swapping out the probe.

Like I say it depends on what your wanting to do and how you use your machine.
For instance routers tend not have tool holders that can be set off the machine so can't use tool offsets. In this case the simple touch plate is great because you fit the tool and probe with the tool for each tool change. You can also use the tool for finding edges etc by putting plate between if non conductive material.

Mill's on the other hand tend to work with holders and can use tool offset's so after initial setting of material height the touch plate isn't so important. It can still be used for edge finding etc same as above.

So IME I find the plate much more useful than the 3D probe. It is possible to permantly fit and offset the 3D probe but would need careful setup and offsets applied thru scripts etc so not exactly simple.