All Activity

Hello. I am attempting to measure this dimension here. The depth of a screw hole not including the taper at the bottom. I am attempting to do this by extracting the tapered section as a cone, and the hole as a cylinder. Then I create an intersection plane between the two, and measure that to an intersection plane of the cylinder and front surface. When I attempt to make the intersection between a cone and a cylinder, it places the result at the pointed tip of the cone, and not the intersection plane between the two. What is causing this? Thank you for any help

I have been working on fitting one of these on two Micura 5/5/5's. Very limited space with our current configuration. The company was kind enough to send me CAD models for me to establish how to place it on these small CMM's. My last detail is to make the CMM programs always move up and over the part and never in the -Y axis.

My current build. This probe is 6 inches long, so you would need about a 60mm extension for the counterweight (best guess). If you balance the stylus on the tips of two fingers after its built, you will have a good idea if it is balanced. I place two fingers under the Adaptor far apart as close to center as possible, then let the stylus hang.

Do you get those results with 100% probing dynamic? When I tested it with a counterweight, it made minimal difference. I will likely check the weight and test again. It is currently yielding acceptable results, but I need to do a short R&R run to validate those results on a known specimen. I really like this approach. I had not considered testing each section of the system. We need the clearance added with the vertical extension and the 11mm diameter of the horizontal extension. Sounds like the initial plan will be to test each piece of the system and find the weak point. Then I will add a counterweight to the system. If all items check fine, but the entire system still yields bad results at 100% dynamic, is it reasonable/acceptable to lower the probing dynamic for something like this?

For me, I would say this stylus system introduces two significant undesirables - Length and stiffness. Length - The longer the probing system (with all things being equal), the more error will be introduced. Unfortunately that’s just the way physics works. The shorter you can make your stylus system the better. Stiffness – The longer the build-up, the more important it becomes to have the extensions be as stiff as possible. The 20mm Ø extensions are stiffer than the 11mm Ø extensions. Suggestions – 1) Is it possible to remove the vertical extension and cube, then mount the horizontal extension to the cube on the plate? This would reduce length and weight. I’ve done this on a few of our systems and it always helps. 2) Can you replace the 11mm Ø extension with a 20mm? That would help with stiffness. And use the shortest extension possible. 3) Sometimes you can gain a little bit by changing the probing pressure. Sometimes more is better, and sometimes less is better. Experiment. 4) As others have suggested, a counterbalance may get you a little bit too. 5) Slower speeds may also get you a little. You’re still going to have a significant sigma value so I would also suggest doing an R&R study using the artifact so you know how much measurement error the system is going to introduce in each of the directions, and the diameter. If I remember right, Zeiss recommends a 10-run R&R. I usually do a 5 or 6-run.

No change occured when using runPCMFile()

the fileExists() comes back as true. i have also tried using actualInspectionsDir() and still no luck

I'll try that @Jens Kröcher and see if it works.

We have a stylus system that is very close to that one. It often qualifies between .0005 and .0010. We do use a counter weight, but it still doesn't qualify that well. We only use it for stuff with loose tolerance since I know its not that accurate. HOWEVER, I would suggest trying a different adaptor plate as well. The XTR adaptor plates are more complicated which just means that there is more that can go wrong. Which sucks, cause those things are $$$.

I recommend a counter weight as well along with taking it apart and cleaning the threads of all connections. The threads usually get me. I also find it ok to probe at 1% dynamics if needed.

I was able to find it too ( created dummy program and overwritten two files ) I am still working on my app - certainly it's not showing all things

Yep, for that length and probable weight, I would say a 40mm extension and about 50g of weight will work. I have a similar probe with this configuration.

What I found.

what happens when you build maximum compact with just the two styli and test them seperatly? Would be a good starting point knowing that this gives the expected results before looking further. You could then start rebuilding link for link, maybe that shows a weak link (a link with more flex than expected). I dont know the system so just speculating here, but it could also be wear of the modul itself. Meaning it was once "strong" enough to support the weight but isnt anymore.

Hi Pierre, my brain is making funny stuff out of your picture perpective wise regarding the orientation of plane 1. Is plane 1 perpendicular to both cylinder axis? If this is the case you could measure two cylinder for example like Martin has described and build a symmetrie axis. Depending on the part (form deviation) and function it could be better building this with just two circles start and end of the cylinders. Plane 1 would then be defined by the end surface of the two cylinder.

I would scan 3 circles - at beggining, middle and ending of a part - those 3 points can be your plane. Also in this case or in case with non 180° circle you can restrict circle radius to have stable centers.

I would suggest a counterweight.

There is no path to the file.

try runPCMFile(paramFile) instead of readPCMFile(paramFile)

I wanted to get some thoughts on this stylus system. I was informed that it has always qualified at .010mm or higher. It has recently been providing inaccurate results. The horizontal shaft is ~8 inches long. Today, we inspected the tips, and they appear to be in good condition (no visible flat spots or aluminum buildup under microscope). We verified all connections are tight. Both tips qualify at the same sigma value and radius (.005 mm oversized). We then tested qualifying each of the tips at a 20-30% probing dynamic, and that yielded .001mm. We also tested adding a counterbalance to the system, and that made no difference at the 100% probing dynamic. Does this seem right to you guys? Could there be something else causing issues? I have limited experience with stylus systems like this. We also have a couple other setups like this, and they qualify around the same sigma value. My leading theory is simply that the shaft length causes it to “shake” during probing, so the lower dynamic slows this movement down, allowing for more stability.

Considering that is a fully constrained DRF, each unique feature can be evaluated separately. You can then use the max and min result elements to report the specific max profile deviation. If you then want to just report the max result, you can “Mark” the other characteristics (which will hide them from the report). Be sure to also check the “Hide” button in the multiple reports screen.

Our programming team, just two of us, is certainly in a position where programming/debugging at the CMM is counterproductive with the volume of inspections. Top that off with no dedicated CMM operators to help test programs has had some disastrous results. I've quickly discovered some of the quirks with Planner and Simulation already. We'll see just how much more finnicky it can get!

Without the FreeForm license, here is an article on how to get a profile result... https://portal.zeiss.com/knowledge-base?id=2495545

I think you can create profile callout on every feature, then report Max ( or in ASME Max and Min ) from those characteristics. I have no exp without FF so i don't know how others are dealing with this.

This is probably pretty basic stuff, but how do I take a profile measurement of a composite of multiple features? I'm using Calypso 2025, and do not have FreeForm. Attached a snippet of the feature I'm trying to measure. Need a profile of the entire perimeter, despite what the drawing may suggest: