QtDragon OFFSETS vs. PROBE?

I am currently switching from Gmoccapy to QtDragon and somehow managed to setup the Auto Tool Measurement for manual tool change after some struggle.

What puzzles me: The OFFSETS tab shows WORKPIECE HEIGHT and TOOL SENSOR HEIGHT; the PROBE tab (Versaprobe) shows BLOCK HT and PROBE HT. Do I assume correctly that they should be the same (WORKPIECE HEIGHT == BLOCK HT, TOOL SENSOR HEIGHT == PROBE HT). I can set both pairs to different values, however the Auto Tool Measurement (qt_auto_probe_tool.ngc) will only use the pair from PROBE.

Is there a reason why they are kept separately? I would even say that they only belong to OFFSETS or even better in its own UTILS tab (as there are other methods of auto tool measurements).

Regards
Guido
 

the entries on the offset page are for a touch plate style origin setter.
linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/gui/qtdragon.html#_touch_plate

Versa page settings are for versa probing/auto tool touch off.
linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/gui/qtdrag...uto_tool_measurement

I am open to using different terms or locations in the future, if the consensus is that would be better/less confusing.

Thanks for the explanation.

How is the workflow for the OFFSETS page supposed to look like? Similar to the Auto Tool Measurement where you have a probe height and a workpiece height, but only using a touch plate in a defined location instead of a "real" tool setter?

Is the PROBE_HT, BLOCK_HT pair in PROBE used for anything else but the Auto Tool Measurement?

For which use case do the settings in OFFSETS need to differ from the ones in PROBE?

To understand my confusion here is bit of context:
I have a self build router style milling machine with an ER11 HF-spindle. I usually split my milling jobs into one g-code file per tool. I load the tool beforehand and touch off the Z height. Either by eye balling or with a touch plate (spindle is grounded, touch plate is isolated and connected to probe-in).
With more complex milling tasks involving multiple tools this becomes a bit tedious. Therefore I looked into Auto Tool Measurement already once with Gmoccapy.
But I did not like the workflow, especially the multiple measurements involved. e.g. for work piece height I zeroed G54 to the machine table and then measured the height of the work piece, both with the same touch plate. For the tool setter I measured the height with the tool setter itself (with G54 still zeroed on the machine table). Using two different sensors (touch plate and tool setter) might introduce a slight offset.
Personally, I would prefer the workflow talla83 showed in (in German). Basically: Load an initial tool or probe and touch off the zero height with it. Then at every manual tool change, it will measure the new tool  and apply the difference to the previous tool to the Z-offset. For me this would lead to the same workflow if I would only use one tool or have multiple tool changes in one job.

I can understand that people have different preferences. E.g. somebody working with flat material of known thickness always mounted on the machine table at the same height might prefer the Gmoccapy workflow with just entering the material thickness once.

Regards,
Guido

The touchplate routine sets the users coordinate in Z - that is all.

Versa probe PROBE_HT, BLOCK_HT settings are only used for auto tool probing.

I would think you would only need to measure the tool setter height once, It shouldn't change.

I assume another probe procedure would only (?) require a different remap. Versa probe screen only displays/allows editing of the two heights, plus a button to skip the probing.all the rest is in the remap.

Thanks, I think, after some experimenting, I now finally understood what the OFFSETS and TOOL tabs are doing.

In OFFSETS you basically manually do what the Automatic Tool Measurement with the remapped M6 does. With GO TO SENSOR you move the spindle over to the tool sensor, then you manually lower it to be within 10mm of the sensor. Then TOOL SENSOR would probe the height and the Z would be set to TOOL SENSOR HEIGHT - WORKPIECE HEIGHT.
This seems to be targeted at people that are used to the TOOL SENSOR HEIGHT and WORKPIECE HEIGHT workflow.

In TOOL it is more the touch off that I am used to. Move the Spindle to an arbitrary location, e.g. within 10mm above the touch plate resting on the workpiece. Press TOUCH PLATE and the tool will be touched off setting Z to the TOUCH PLATE HEIGHT.

OK, sounds obvious now. But I first got confused by weird Z numbers, because I still had a non-zero tool length defined for my current tool, which got applied as well.

Regards,
Guido