To start, this unit does NOT communicate with your CNC machine in any way. This simply provides a means for you to easily assess edges of conductive materials. Because of this, I think it’s not as viable as those which act as sensors that communicate with your CNC machine. This unit is very well built and easy to use. Beside the fact that it’s just a manual indicator for finding and logging your edges, it is NOT rechargeable. It requires battery replacements. This product definitely has a use somewhere, but I can’t see it being useful for my purposes where I already have a connected probe. Read more

This is a great little edge finder. I did install a higher precision tip to mine and admittedly, I had to fix it before it worked. Mine had light corrosion between the relief spring and the diaphragm plate internally and required disassembly to clean this before it would light. Back together, I stuck it on my spindle and set it 0.2mm from and edge and used the four allen head adjustment screws around the body to set the ball true, occasionally making micro adjustments of the X axis until there was no run-out at all. I was able to true this well below 0.1mm which is more than enough precision for me. There is no on-switch, you just use it. The edge must be metallic. You can use a wire with alligator clips to ground the neck to the edge material if there is no continuity. All of this said, it's a great edge find for identifying your fixtures to zero coordinates against a home reference. With the inconveniences of use, I wouldn't use it for other operations. Read more

I do wish that this edge finder came with directions, or a link to some directions, for changing the batteries and adjusting the probe. The unit has four long set screws that take a 2.5mm hex key spaced evenly around the upper edge. These clamp everything into place and can be adjusted in opposing pairs to fine-tune the centering of the probe. When those set screws are backed off, the top is still loosely retained by two smaller set screws that take a 1.5mm hex key. They don't clamp on to anything, even when fully tightened, but they will prevent accidental separation of the sections of the edge finder. After those set screws are also backed off, the top of the unit can be removed. Inside is a pair of CR1616 3V coin cell batteries that power the LEDs. The edge finder works very nicely with conductive materials. With non-conductive materials, I just add a machinist's parallel of known thickness along one side of my clamping setup. I can then probe to that and add the known offset. Similarly, when probing out the face of a piece of wood or plastic for CNC carving, I use thin metal disks of known thickness placed at the locations I wish to probe. Those disks have attached wires that connect back to the base of the router, so they will complete the circuit and give me reliable measurements. I apply the offset and I'm good to go. Finally, the probe itself has a 2mm hole through the base which is perfect for attaching a contact lead. With one lead there and another connected to machine ground, my PLC can monitor the voltage across the edge finder. It is about 4.7V when open, perfect for TTL digital high, and of course 0V when shorted. So at the same moment that the LEDs turn on, the signal drops to an unequivocal digital low. The signals are fast, unambiguous, and perfect for automating whether you are using a PLC setup, Arduino, or running everything from a PC serial connection. Read more

First I'm going to start with the bad: this is described as a CNC probe but there is no way to connect this (that I can figure) to a CNC controller for edge finding. Also, this could use some documentation and I still have no idea what size of battery this takes nor how to install it, but hey it shipped with a battery installed so I just went straight to using it. With that out of the way, let's get to the good part - it works! Shaft is 10mm so ideally you'll want a 10mm collet in your machine. This works by electrical conductivity so your machine will also need full conductivity from the spindle to the work holding - maybe check this with a DMM before purchase. So long as you have the collet and a conductive path, everything else is dead simple. Device lights up around 100RPM or so, I found you want it around 1000RPM to get the light display to read well. My DRO is good down to around 0.01mm and I've found the repeatability on this is at (or below) this level, I can zero it on the work, move it, come back, and bring it right back to 0.00 without looking at the DRO. That's what I actually need this thing to do and it gets 5 stars in terms of functionality and accuracy. This thing is fast and easy to use on a manual machine, accurate, maybe a bit expensive and needs a printed manual. Read more

It has worked well thus far, and is very repeatable. I am using it for a CNC lathe, so I haven't tried to center it, but based on the design, I don't expect there would be any problem with doing that. It's a nice tool for the price. Read more