A way to control board measurement?

[cycollins]

The manual says that when the LCD reads "Finding Surface", you can hit stop and use the "jog" function to place the bit anywhere you want. This is useful when you use a sled or you're modifying an already-carved surface. The surface you would like to be the zero depth may not be the one the CW unit would find on its own. Cool. So is there a similar thing one can do to control the location on the right and left board edges (as one faces the LCD) used by the CW to establish the length of the work-piece and the point on the front and back edge used to determine the width of the board. This would also be useful when using a sled. Most sleds have a pair of rails to act against the compression rollers. They would be useful for letting the CW unit establish a length for the sled. Since most sled situations have a center area that is lower than the rails, and the entire sled is virtually as high as the rails, there is no safe place for the CW to measure the length of the virtual work-piece except along the rails. So how do you tell the CW to use the rails for length measurement? Similarly, a sled could have "gate" at the left and right ends (a piece that spans the distance between the rails). This would be the ideal place for the CW to measure the width of the virtual work piece. Again, how would you tell the CW to use the gate span to measure width as opposed to some point in the middle of the sled (that would almost certainly confuse it)? I'm building a sled now and these are the practical questions, I'd like to understand before using it. Anyone with some sled experience want to chime in on this?

cycollins

[Jeff_Birt]

The sled I made for carving is a piece of plywood with a 1x4 on the left and right sides. This gives teh 3.5" needed at each end to stay under the rollers. I then screw the workpiece down and move the right 1x4 up to my stock. This works well but set up is a PITA. The machine has NO problem measuring this set up though, works every time. Even though my sled is wider (F-R) than the stock it sees the edge of the stocl every time.

The pictures I have seen of sleds with rails (like a scanning sled) have used the same 1x4 on the left and right sides as 'stay-under-roller-stock'. The machine will also measure this fine but your width measurement (F-R) will be off by the rail width. So you can remember to add this to your layout in Designer OR jog the machine to the start position. It starts carving the top-left corner of the baord first.

[DocWheeler]

Cy,
Thr jog feature puzzled me, it seemed convenient, but how to impliment it wisely?
I then watched the probe video and got some ideas which I will try when able. See http://www.carvebuddy.com/scanningvideo_how_it_works.html

Ken