Here is where the Wireless Auto Z tool sits right now. I’ve got the receiver wired to a free port on my breakout board. I’ve bolted a contact plate to the bottom of the transmitter. Currently, I still have the ground wire rigged to be manually connected to a point on the spindle mount with an alligator clip. The reason for the alligator clipped wire is because I have absolutely no creativity when it comes to designs such as this. Ideally, the contact plate would be a switch to close the switch in a single unit.
Ok, I got this idea when I was trying to find a good spot to ground my Auto Z tool on my small desktop CNC router. Being an avid photographer, I had some cheap ‘Ebay Triggers’. They are basically an 8 or 16 channel transmitter and receiver that simply ‘close a switch’. The great thing is they only cost about $20.00 dollars with free shipping.
Alot of them come from China but I have found the reliability to be superb. When you compare it to $300.00 triggers from the ‘name brands’, you can see why I love them so much. I could afford to buy spares if one of them broke!
This is the transmitter. I’ve installed the headphone wire so I could test the trigger as it would be wired to a contact plate of some sort.
This is the receiver. I have a camera PC Sync cable attached and stripped on the other end. Screw it into my breakout board and I’m in business. You could run any kind of wire you want from anywhere inside the receiver but the PC Sync makes it really convenient. I’ll be using velcro to attach the receiver to the outside of my CNC so I can turn it off and on to save my battery.
Here’s the video.
There are very few instructions on this page, because I feel that the pictures are really straighforward and self-explanatory. If you have any questions, you can post a comment here. I’ll do my best to help you out if you do run into trouble.
I haven’t created the actual contact plate yet because I’m still deciding on what design to go with. I plan to make it a one piece unit that is as compact and I can get it. My idea for the contact plate is a 1/8 aluminum plate on the bottom, with an insulated strip of copper slightly above it. One wire running to each. When the mill pushes the copper down and makes contact, ta-da! All done.
I would love to hear your comments. Feel free to improve my design and send it to me or post a link to it.
And now we take you to the pictures and a video of one of my first tests in action. I had help from the Father-in-Law. Enjoy.
Here are those links again to get you started and save you a trip back to the top of the page. (grin) Link to Ebay Triggers #1
Welcome to my site. So far, I have a few links up to the auctions that I spend most of my time on. I like hand tools and gadgets. If you find any of those pages useful, copy the link at the top of the page and save it into your favorite RSS reader. I like Google Reader myself.
I got into CNC this past December. In the past couple of months, the weather had warmed up and, once I finished my shop, I’ve gotten to start spending a decent amount of time out there with it. I have a few more things to ‘tweak’ on it before I’m ready for some serious cutting but wow, is it ever fun! The router is not quite perfectly square as evidenced by the slight ’stair-stepping’ I get on surfacing cuts. I have to eliminate this. I also need to finish up my Wireless Radio Auto Z tool. Talk about handy! The wired version is awesome. I can only imagine what it will be like when I’ve finally eliminated all of the wires.
The CNC is probably the only thing I have purchased in the past year that I didn’t get from Ebay. I plan to start retrofitting my wood lathe for some CNC action in the next few months and you can bet that most of my parts are going to come from there. So yeah, there are lots of links to Ebay in these pages.
What else? Not very much. I work, I play. I love inventing and tinkering. The things that trouble me at work or in my workshop are the motivation for most of my ideas. Something about neccessity being the ‘Mother of Invention’. I truly believe that. Enjoy my site. Drop me a line or comment if you share any of my interests.
