Probe Coordinates Relative to Base Alignment

[[Da...]]

Is there a way to show the probe's current coordinates relative to the part alignment rather than just showing the coordinates relative to the machine's home/0,0,0? For some reason, the program I am running is suddenly colliding with my part even though I just ran this exact same program on a similar part not 30 minutes prior. I would like to see where the probe thinks it is colliding vs. where the nominal is according to the program. I have tried changing my clearance plane and increasing my search distance, clearance distance and retract distance all to ridiculous numbers, and it still collides. These are molded and machined parts, so I can't believe that this feature is that significantly out of position. Any help would be appreciated.

[[Ow...]]

Hi Dakota,
You can view the probe position relative to the base alignment by clicking the first drop-down menu below the coordinates in the stop-light window and selecting base alignment.

Just a guess but, I suspect your base alignment has flipped. Go to plan, navigation and select blocked edges. In the blocked edges
window you'll see a cube with check-boxes and the four check-boxes at the bottom have circles around them. If the circles are at the top, the alignment has flipped. This will cause , for example, features that may travel in x+ to be x- and so on.
Flipped alignments are usually caused by erroneous Planar Rotation's in the alignment, usually a 3D line but, can be caused by other types of features used, usually when two features are used and say hole left to right is chosen with a recalled line and then by accident the operator measures the right hole first and then the left.
To clear the base alignment and correct the blocked edge window, go to resources, utilities and all the way at the bottom select, set base alignment to zero. Then figure out what feature caused the flip and rerun the program with a manual base alignment.

Just guessing here, I don't know what type of probe head you're using, but, you could also have a bogus stylus selected in a feature, say you're measure a ID from the left with an -X clearance plane and the left probe (not the right which should be it) is selected inside the strategy with one point or one of many points. For that matter, a bogus point could have accidentally been selected if define points was on and you clicked on the model with the strategy open and created a point and didn't notice doing it.

It could really be lot's of things but, if the above doesn't help, post back with more info and I'm sure somebody here (if not myself) will get you going in the right direction. You could also call the Zeiss hotline for help at 1-800-327-9735 if you have less than a year old new CMM or purchased a software maintenance agreement with them.

[[La...]]

When something like this happens to me, my first step is to go to CAD drop down > CAD Model Control > Show probing object. Then I can see where Calypso thinks the stylus tip is "in space".

Make sure that your stylus moves in the right axes on the screen. This, paired with switching the stop light to Base Alignment coordinates, is usually what helps me figure out what's happening.

For troubleshooting purposes I almost always do my manual alignment through the Base Alignment window using the bottom right icon, Execute Manual Run now I think is what it's called. Then I can do my manual alignment without having the program kick into CNC right after.