Probe Qualification Navigation Problems

[[Je...]]

Im having problems with navigation around the cal sphere during my stylus calibration programs. I have 2 different Contura G2 with RDS XXT running Calypso 2018. I have made several different calibration programs to try and alleviate the issue but it keeps happening.

The stylus will qualify but will sometimes, seemingly randomly, neglect to return to a safe position above the sphere to rotate to a new position. It has crashed the machine a few times over several months, running the probe head into the bridge or cal sphere or plate during rotation. I have the settings for the program at Order of Run set to Characteristic, Navigate feature to feature as "Use position points only", Use "current alignment". No other special settings implemented.

This started when we moved from Calypso 6.2 to Calypso 2018 6.6.16 on our original G2. We added a second G2 to our lab in March that started out as 6.6.16 that is having the same problem.

The program that worked for several years to qualify all styli suddenly started having problems around that time. It doesn't appear on every stylus system. I cannot make heads or tails of a pattern or criteria as to why it navigates incorrectly. This is costing hours of manual qualification each week as we have over one hundred styli angles to qualify that are used frequently (we do not use CAA mode).

I have tried changing the Extras>Settings>CMM>Movement "Short travel during qualification" option on and off and it doesn't appear to change anything.

Is anyone else having these problems?

[[Cl...]]

I had a similar problem years ago. What I did was open a blank (new) program. I copy/pasted my probing system qualification characteristics over to the new program. Then I re-established the ref sphere location with the MasterProbe. That did the trick.
You my have something else going on, but it's worth a try.

[[Je...]]

Thanks Clarke, I've tried that several times to no avail. I've copy/pasted. Ive created new programs from scratch.

The rotation problem appears to happen at total random. I can run it 10 times for the same stylus system and it won't have any issues, the 11th time one styli rotation will cause a crash if I don't catch it. If I DO catch it before it crashes, I can re run the program without making any changes and it will likely run just fine the next time around.

Most of the time the error is acting like it forgets its Z+ clearance planes and starts to rotate/navigate as soon as it clears X/Y clearance planes designated by the qualification settings.

Either there is a setting I am missing or there is a flaw in 6.6 because this is happening on two separate machines running unique programs created on their separate respective computers. The only similarity between the machines is the settings were copied from the original machine to the second machine during initial install.

[[SH...]]

Look like a mysterious problem, I observed this like in my ordinary program due to bug in my computer. When I updated my antivirus, it is eliminated.

[[Ca...]]

Are you running the qualification program locally, or from a server? I've had navigation problems (among others things) when running directly from a server.

I've also found that if I run from a server, and have the same program open at multiple workstations, even simulation, there WILL be problems VERY similar to these.

Also, were each of the probe rotations calibrated with the reference sphere in the same rotation and tilt? I'm not sure what would happen if some probes were qualified at say, Tilt: 135° and Rotation 45° and other probes were qualified at 180° and 0°. I'm curious when the reference sphere shaft location gets updated...

[[Je...]]

Programs are run from the machine locally. Ref sphere is always at the same orientation (fixtured). As far as I can tell, the ONLY change that was made on the original G2 was converting from 6.2 to 6.6. The machine ran for 5 years without a single problem running the same qualification program.

At this point my only viable solution is to implement manual paths to each individual stylus rotation. It will be tedious as there are over 750 different styli will need to be modified, qualified, copied then transferred to the sister machine and requalified there.

Thanks for the heads up on the multiple instances circumstance. I am actually in the process (literally right now) of swapping from individual local drives to a networked drive. We are concerned about program. I wasn't sure what hiccups I would encounter so this is a trial by fire. I had a feeling I was going to have to avoid multiple instances of the same program but only due to reporting/saved point/alignment configs. I see the rabbit hole goes deeper...