ProbeItM3 for Mach3 – Coming Soon

Coming soon: ProbeItM3 for Mach3.

ProbeItM3 is on its way: the Mach3 edition of ProbeIt, the touch-probe application for measuring, edge tracing and surface scanning. ProbeIt started life as a wizard for Mach3. ProbeItM3 brings the much larger feature set of the UCCNC edition back to Mach3 users, without the limits of a macro-based wizard. It runs as its own program next to Mach3 and talks to it through Mach3’s scripting interface. Nothing is installed into Mach3: no plugin to enable, no screen set to load.

ProbeItM3 running next to Mach3: opening G-code, jogging from ProbeItM3, and sending the program to Mach3.

What it will do

  • Probe tip calibration with directional compensation, at two speeds with interpolation in between
  • Perimeter probing: trace 2D profiles in X/Y, plus X/Z and Y/Z surface tracing, recorded to DXF and CSV
  • Edges, corners (inside, outside, angled), bores, bosses and posts, slots and ridges
  • Automatic G68 rotation from an edge or corner
  • 3D surface scanning to a point cloud (bed-of-nails grid), also with a 4th axis rotary, and basic rotary probe routines
  • G-code editor with scale, flip, rotate and mirror, plus autoleveling of G-code to a probed heightmap, sent straight to Mach3
  • 3D/DXF viewer with layers, colors, selection, delete/undo and draw line; DXF files that open in Vectric apps, Fusion and Lightburn
  • Clearance moves at a feed you set instead of G0 rapids, and a separate clearance feed for perimeter probing

Gallery

A probed surface shown as a point cloud in the ProbeIt 3D viewer
A probed surface as a point cloud, with the probe cone in the 3D viewer.
A perimeter traced with ProbeIt, opened in a CAD program
A traced perimeter, recorded to DXF and opened in CAD.
G-code autoleveled to a probed heightmap in the ProbeIt viewer
G-code autoleveled to a probed heightmap.

Where it stands

ProbeItM3 is in final testing. It has been tested with Mach3 on a CNCdrive (UCCNC) controller and on a SmoothStepper; other motion controllers have not been tested yet. Requirements: Mach3 3.043.x on Windows 7 or later, .NET Framework 4.0 or later, and a touch probe wired to Mach3’s probe input. A free 45-day demo and an online manual will be available at release; pricing will be announced then.

Want to know when it is released?

Send a note through the contact page or to eabrust@craftycnc.com and I will let you know when ProbeItM3 is ready. Questions about your setup are welcome too: tell me your control, motion controller and probe, and what you would like to probe.

Using UCCNC or ProbeItM4 for Mach4? ProbeIt for UCCNC is available now. See also the comparison of the versions.