QC Calc Tips and Tricks

[[Ch...]]

Forum peeps,

I'm looking at getting QC Calc. What are your guy's opinions on it? Are there any good tricks that people have found while using it? Does it eat just the character table file or does it use the header and feature table files too? I know it destroys the table file but I plan on just using a batch file to copy it before it gets deleted. Does anyone copy their table files using another method?

Just trying to pick your brains a bit.

[[Er...]]

Hi Chad,

QC-Calc only uses the characteristics files as its data source. The bad thing is that these files get deleted after QCC processes them as you mentioned already.
If you however need the chr files for further analysis like we do for our cnc tool compensation, you can use a batch files which just copies the files from the Zeiss save directory to your qcc directory. This way no files disappear.

To trigger this .bat file, just save it as “report_end.bat” and place it in your “\workspace\inspections” directory. It will then get executed after each run.

Also try to avoid changing the number or order of features in your measurement plan for one qcc table/file as it gets “corrupted”.

Regards

[[Am...]]

I change my characteristics order all the time and QC-Calc has not had an issue dealing with that. The only time ive seen a problem is having a data point with the same exact name but coming from a different source it will screw it up. But even changing which characteristic has that name has not produced any issues only having two characteristics with identical names coming from two different sources such as one from zeiss and another from QC gage, or an imaging system.

[[La...]]

What is everyone using QC-Calc for? I used it in my last job, before I worked in applications, and I thought it was...not that useful. I'd like to get an understanding of how people are using it if anyone cares to share.

[[Ch...]]

Here why I am excited about it. It will save me a ton of time when it comes to handling table files. I currently have to write all of my own macros or anything else I need if I want to automate my SPC. The reason it is appealing to me is simplicity and more importantly, the price.

QC-Calc won't do some of the things that P$ Web will do; However, it can do the majority of what P$ Web does. When you run the cost/benefit analysis on both P$ Web and QC Calc you clearly get more utility for your dollar with QC Calc.

[[La...]]

That's interesting, because I found creating custom reports in QC-CALC to be extremely arduous. The report editor was awful, and I found it's only use to be for extracting data en masse to plug into some other SPC software like Minitab. And even then it was a pain to manipulate the extracted data into a format that Minitab would accept for capability studies etc.

That's my personal experience using QC-CALC as a quality engineer @ my last place of work. I hated it. When I discovered PiWeb I wished that I had it in my old role which is why I've taken to it so much. I've worked with many different customers of all different industries to come up with dashboards in PiWeb for monitoring their CNC lines, documentation control for the Nuclear industry, etc. , etc. The flexibility of it honestly is mind blowing to me. Which is why I'm so curious what the perceived advantage of QC CALC is when I hear about it, since my personal experience was so terrible.

Also they have a per CMM license as far as I know which can add up, where as PiWeb doesn't require a license for the incoming data sources.

Anyways, thanks for the insight.

[[Am...]]

We use it to track and store all the SPC data, also its very useful to have all measurements get put together and into the same format as not everything is measured with the zeiss. This way any data collected on the part is put into the same file and plotted on the chart, so all hand tool measurement, CMM measurements and any other systems like a visual system will get put together on the same report with nice summaries of CP, CPK and so on.We have a monitor in front of every CNC machine that shows the measurements on a chart and see the trends without the in process inspector having to go to report any data to anyone. It helps especially when we have ~40 CNC machines running and various measurement equipment being used depending on whats gonna work better for that particular part.

Also I think its personally way easier to use then Pi Web, for example recently had a part missing the true position by .0001" however with MMC it was well within, needed the cPK to be calculated with the MMC in mind for QC calc it was a simple task and all I needed to change was adding the X and Y of the feature to be reported as well and it combines the data between X,Y,DIA and the TP into one chart. took all of 2 minutes to search for in the QC calc help file and checking on my XY. While on Pi Web id probably be posting on here about it.

I still use Pi Web but our system is standardized where every tool in the building can add on to the QC calc charts and have all report summaries look the same. Where if I need more detailed information from the Zeiss I will still use Pi Web.

I would just like to add that QC calc and Gage were in place here before I started working and before they started using Zeiss CMMs so the amount of people that know how to use PiWeb is just me.

[[Ch...]]

Pi Web looks great and powerfull, but in reality its a paper tiger.

[[Ri...]]

In my previous life, I had QC-Calc, and then we ended up switching to PiWeb Enterprise. Hands down PiWeb is 100% better than QC-Calc.

QC-Calc cannot handle all of the custom variables, and form plots that PiWeb can.

In addition, creating custom reports in QC-Calc was very tedious, and looked horrible.

QC-Calc is cheap, but there are so many issues with it.

They may have changed, but I used to get so frustrated that it would create a separate database file if I happened to add or remove a characteristic to my measurement plan, so mini-plans didn't work well with it.