Z zero ignored when using z probe

Community Discussion šŸ“„ General
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Good morning. Iā€™ve had a ton of issues with my Masuter Pro since I bought it. FA is sending me a new motherboard. Someone here sent me the $ settings recommended for the 4080 (supposedly similar to the Masuter Pro), which I inputted into gSender. Thank You! Got rid of three problems. But now another problem arose, and I know it has to be a setting I changed since itā€™s never happened before. When I zero the Z using the probe, the job runs about a half inch above the material. Same program I ran before, but never experieneced this issue (other issues yes, but not with the Z axis). If I zero Z with a piece of paper, the job runs fine (without the issues I had before changing the $ settings.) Itā€™s almost like thereā€™s a Z offset I donā€™t know about. Offset is not set in VCarve. Has to be a setting in gSender I donā€™t know about. I tried all three probe types in gSender probe settings. Any ideas? So close to finally getting a job to run right!

Here are the settings. I set everything the same except for $131 I set to 400.

$0=10 (Step pulse time)

$1=255 (Step idle delay)

$2=0 (Step pulse invert)

$3=0 (Step direction invert)

$4=0 (Invert step enable pin)

$5=0 (Invert limit pins)

$6=0 (Invert probe pin)

$10=1 (Status report options)

$11=0.010 (Junction deviation)

$12=0.002 (Arc tolerance)

$13=0 (Report in inches)

$20=0 (Soft limits enable)

$21=1 (Hard limits enable)

$22=1 (Homing cycle enable)

$23=3 (Homing direction invert)

$24=25.000 (Homing locate feed rate)

$25=1000.000 (Homing search seek rate)

$26=250 (Homing switch debounce delay)

$27=1.000 (Homing switch pull-off distance)

$30=1000 (Maximum spindle speed) (This should be 10000)

$31=0 (Minimum spindle speed)

$32=0 (Laser-mode enable) (Change to =1 when laser is being used)

$100=80.000 (X-axis travel resolution)

$101=80.000 (Y-axis travel resolution)

$102=400.000 (Z-axis travel resolution)

$110=2000.000 (X-axis maximum rate)

$111=2000.000 (Y-axis maximum rate)

$112=1200.000 (Z-axis maximum rate)

$120=300.000 (X-axis acceleration)

$121=300.000 (Y-axis acceleration)

$122=30.000 (Z-axis acceleration)

$130=400.000 (X-axis maximum travel)

$131=380.000 (Y-axis maximum travel)

$132=55.000 (Z-axis maximum travel)

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I donā€™t see anything obviously wrong with your settings. I though that the large difference in travel resolution was weird at first but then I looked up the machine and saw that the X and Y are belts and the Z is a lead screw so I think that explains the difference.

Have you entered the dimensions of your probe as described here? Another thing that has happened before is users hitting the Z zero button after the probing sequence which is wrong as the probe sequence sets Z zero it just doesnā€™t stop at Z zero.

If none of this helps try writing down the workspace Z coordinate, larger number in gSender, immediately after running the probe. Then jog off the workpiece and hit the ā€˜Go toā€™ button next to the Z and see how far off from the top of workpiece it is. Maybe this information will help others to figure out the problem.

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Thanks. Iā€™ll try that tonight. I rechecked the probe thickeness and itā€™s still at the height as when I measured the probe initially. I know all about the Z button. I never use the Z zero button (except when I zeroed Z using a piece of paper.) I use the Z jog button a lot, but never the Z0 button up near the X and Y zero buttons. I think this is such a simple, stupid, mistake that weā€™re all missing itā€¦lol. Remember, this was working perfectly before I set the $ settings. I shouldnā€™t have to flash the controller after resetting the $ settings in the gSender console, should I??

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BTWā€¦I did set the Z travel resolution to the same as X and Y, abut the Z jog moved about as fast as the line at the drivers license stationā€¦lol. So I set it back.

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Additional info: I zeroed Z using the probe, jogged away from the probe area, and then jogged to Z0 . (Jogging to X and Y zero works fine.) The spindle did not return to the material surface, but stayed about 3/4 inch above. Lowering it to the material surface, gSender reported Z=-1.78. I did check VCarve and made sure my origin is at the top of material. Something is messed up.

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Yeah, somethings up but I canā€™t spot it in your settings.

I wouldnā€™t flash the firmware. Changing the settings just changes values that are exposed by the firmware. If FA has a customized firmware, not sure if they do, flashing a vanilla version from gSender could cause problems.

As far as the travel resolution goes gSender has a calibrate tool that can help make sure those settings are right. The relevant sub-section for that is movement tuning.

If I think of something else Iā€™ll post back but Iā€™m not sure what is causing it to zero so high with the probe.

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Thanks. Really appreciate the help. Iā€™ll upload the diagnostic report from gSender if you want to play with it. Iā€™m guessing if I select the upload icon itā€™ll go to you.
diagnostics_3-11-2025_12-57-29.zip (114.7 KB)

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In your original post $13(report in inches) is 0 for off but in your diagnostics itā€™s 1 for on. Iā€™m pretty sure itā€™s supposed to be off even if you use inches. There is a G-code G20 or G21 that your post processor in VCarve will set depending on whether you design in inches or mm.

In fact you can design in inches use the grbl (mm) post processor, have $13 off, and have gSender show inches by selecting inches in the settings General tab.

The reason to use the millimeter post processor is because grbl only has so many decimal digits of precision and a millimeter being 1/25.4th of an inch leads to increased accuracy.

I suspect that some of the errors are because of $13 being on, like not pulling far enough off the limit switches etc.

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Tried it. No luck. But get this. I zeroed Z on the worksurface using the paper method. Then I jogged it up until gSender reported one inch. But the tool only moved to about a quarter inch above the work surface. I know itā€™s late and Iā€™m grasping at straws, but .25 is a quarter of an inch and one inch equals 25.4 mm. Why is my brain reeling thinking thereā€™s some connection?

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Hate it when I think Iā€™ve found something that will work and it doesnā€™t! Reality is always messing with my plans! :laughing:

Iā€™m thinking that you need to focus on getting the axes calibrated with the correct steps per mm. Only when moving 1" in gSender makes the mill actually move 1" will the probe work correctly.

Donā€™t know if youā€™ve tried the calibrate tool in gSender but it will walk you through making a series of measurements and then calculating the correct steps per mm. You can then enter those new amounts into the firmware and test again to verify that itā€™s correct. It helps to measure longer distances if you can so that the impact of a measuring error is lessened.

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I tried to jog when I calibrated my machine. Jog isnĀ“t accurate at all. I filed a bug, but no one has answered yet. When you calibrate you have to use the goto-command. Only then I got ā€œrealā€ numbers. I might be wrong but clicking two times on normal jog doesnt get me 10mm. But the goto-command does. So thats what I rely on, and when I mill the numbers are correct. So start investigating your issue with goto instead of jog.

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Well, I think we did it. You gave me the inspiration to actually study the $ settings (no, Iā€™m not gay when I show my appreciation, I just love this shit!) Fixed a couple problems. You know about the probe problem, but I also had a problem jogging the Z axis. It would move for a second, them humm and move really slowy. What I now realize, it was going into homing. Now the Z axis jog and probe work fine. Hereā€™s what I did (after actually making sense of the settings): $13=1 reporting in inches only affected how t he units were shown in the gui. $20=1 soft limits were turned off, but more on that later. $27=3 I donā€™t think the spindle was clearing the limit switches after homing. This actually helped the Z jog. Now, the two biggies: Set $102 to 1600. Still not clear what it does, but when I calibrated the Z, it came up with some horrific numbers, much higher then the 400 in the recommended Fox Alien settings. It gave a severe warning about setting it this high, but hell, it worked. Also set $132 to 230 for the Z axis travel. Recommended was 55, but thatā€™s just two inches. My spindle travels four inches. I played with it and the 230mm works. Iā€™ll play with it more to try to get to the four inches travel, but what the hell, everything is working now! Thanks for all your help. I havenā€™t cut yet, so there may be more problems, but for now, Iā€™m happy. I know you help a lot of people. I hope some of this info can help in resolving other peopleā€™s issue. Oh yeah, setting the soft limits helpled immensely.

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