Thread: Idiots Guide to Z axis setup in mach3

Hi Pete,
You use a bit of thin paper between the cutter and your material.
Move the paper back and forth under the cutter until it just grabs. Either manually move the Z axis or set your jog rate at 1 to 5% jog rate for this.
Set your mach3 Z axis DRO to Zero then jog to a safe Z height.

Hi Pete
Do everything that Rod says and you won't go wrong.

But the better way might be to make yourself up a touch plate and use that. The material cost should be almost nil, just a bit of time setting up the software that Greg has written.

Bob Willson

Here is the thread that I started when I was having the same type of problems.

Bobn Willson

Good Idea of using paper, so simple that I should have thought of it. Can you explain to me about setting the zaxis to ZERO, when I hit refrance all the Z axis zeros at the top and zero's the axis ( this is what I cant understand). So lets say for the roadrunner, load the code place the material on the table, referance all, now move the Z axis down to the material untill it touches and press zero again for Z axis? for machine cooordinates dro. Sorry I wasnt joking about a Idiots guide. I have tried to find instruction on using mach 3 but all I find initial setup instructions nothing on once the machine is set up.

Regards pete

Originally Posted by rodm

Hi Pete,
You use a bit of thin paper between the cutter and your material.
Move the paper back and forth under the cutter until it just grabs. Either manually move the Z axis or set your jog rate at 1 to 5% jog rate for this.
Set your mach3 Z axis DRO to Zero then jog to a safe Z height.

Hi Pete,

Keep it simple for the moment so leave ref all home out.
Position your X and Y on the table where you job starts then press Zero X and Zero Y.
Set up your Z axis with the paper and once you have it sitting on the paper then press Zero Z.

What you have done is reference the machine position to the software.

As a safeguard and before you do anything else lift your Z axis above the job (safe Z) otherwise you can drag the cutter on the job if you do an X or Y move.

You can now run your Gcode.

Thanks Rod exactly what I was looking for.

Regards Pete