Manual Tool Change

After noticing that the forum posts I've been reading on this subject are a few years old, I thought I'd ask afresh.

There is no way to make tool changes repeatable on my machine, so each new tool needs to be re-touched off in Z.

LinuxCNC blocks movement during an M6 tool change, making touching off a new tool impossible.

Breaking each tool into separate jobs seems like a highly inelegant solution.

I've located the Manual Tool Change Macro, which appears to do what I want, however it is many years old.

What's the current method re-touching-off during an M6 tool change?

The modified tool change component actually just does run-from-line automatically.
So you can always do similar procedure manually.

If it's a really wanted convenience I can add it to qtvcp screens in the future.
But that doesn't help you now.

It's a shame they jog while paused was not incorporated into linuxcnc.

It is a shame.

There is a hacked version of the `hal_manualtoolchange` Python script floating around that lets you jog/touch off while pause, but I was searching for a somewhat more official solution.

For now, I have gone ahead and made myself a touch sensor, since the official LinuxCNC install does support manual tool changes with automatic tool length measurement with one of those.

This is probably a better long term solution anyway.

To be honest buy you self a tool length setter. It’s the best invest I made (23$ or so its a two stage switch first Tage probe, second Tages estop). You can remap M6 to move to Tool change position, and then touch off. Way more handy than touching of by hand

Already on it. The tool length sensor is en route from China as we speak.

I've also just finished making my own version to use in the mean time.

Seems to work with a sensor:

Can you share how you are running this procedure? Did you have to remap M6?

I don't recall the details off the top of my head, but I believe this works:

github.com/ljkenny/linuxcnc/blob/master/printnc.ini

Yes, it looks like M6 was remapped.

Thank you! Do you mind sharing your remap ngc? Your setup seems simpler than most I’ve seen so far so just curious how it works