Stylus rack behaviour, after pickup.

[[Ri...]]

I am experiencing a new, almost costly rack behaviour this morning.

As of this morning, when I do an automatic pick-up from my stylus rack of this one particular stylus system it now automatically indexes to another RDS position immediately after the pickup. Luckily I was sitting on the machine when it did.

I indexed it back to the 0,0 down position and re-taught the ID on the plate. I then reassigned the Stylus System to that holder position and then sent it back to its holder. I then did a pickup, but again it still indexes after. (This time to another different position!)

I've never had a program where this RDS angle was used, and I've certainly never played around in the stylus rack settings. I am also the only operator/programmer and the only person with the administrative password, so its not someone else's doing.

Picture of probe rack approach page (couldn't use img tags here)
https://ibb.co/ZdCkVm9

Should I just delete the probe as well as its rack position completely and start from scratch? (This seems to be my goto solution for stylus issues.)

How can this happen, is this something I can avoid in the future?

Where would I change this behaviour directly in the Probe Rack settings if I don't want to go deleting my stylus?

[[Ja...]]

Richard,

I have seen the probe rotate to the last calibrated position when grabbing from the holder. I always end qualification with Geometry ReQual on A0B0.

See if that helps.

[[Ca...]]

I agree with Jacob. I've found that upon retrieving a stylus, the RDS will rotate to whatever position it was in when the Stylus System Management window was closed.

The fix is easy, just reopen the Stylus System Management window, rotate to A0B0, and close the window. You don't need to qualify, or change anything except rotating to A0B0, then close the window.

[[Ja...]]

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I always assumed that requalification was necessary, thanks for the tip.

[[To...]]

Calypso remembers which stylus is active when you close the Probe Qualification window. This stylus becomes the active stylus whenever a probe change is completed. So, remember to index to the down probe before closing the Probe Qualification window.

To help prevent issues, in case someone closes Probe Qualification with back probe active, maybe consider modifying the Approach Parameters (see below) of each holder location. Putting a large number, i.e. 999 in the right column (Z) in the before and after change. This will cause the head to go all the way up to the Z limit before any RDS movement occurs. This way the probe is free and clear of the rack if any RDS movement occurs. It also insures clearing most obstacles on the table if more than one job is set up on the machine.

[[Ri...]]

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I was just reading your other post concerning this. I welcome any margin of safety I can add!
Thank you everyone for the tips!
Wasn't going to find that one in the book. 🙂

[[Ri...]]

it appears that I am not implementing this workaround correctly.

I loaded the stylii from the holder, ( it loads it and then moves to an odd RDs position as described)

I then opened the "Stylus System Management window" as instructed.
I then manually rotate the RDS to 0,0 (with the Stylus management window still open)
I then close the "Stylus System Management Window".

I then send the stylus back to the holder.

When I call it again, it still rotates. 😭

Here's a vid showing my order of operations.
https://vimeo.com/334938177

What am I doing wrong?
Did we perhaps mean "Probe Qualification Window" instead of "Stylus Management Window"?

[[To...]]

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When you are in the Probe Qualification window, in the top row of icons, at the far right, there is an icon that looks like a probe swiveling left and right. Click that icon. You'll find and A and B field at the bottom, pre 2018. At the top on 2018. Enter 0 in both of these fields, and then click the Rotate Axis on machine to right, pre 2018 Below on 2018 Close the RC List window. Click OK on the Probe Qualification window.

[[Ri...]]

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That indeed does the trick for everything except for the a-axis of the Master Probe.

As it was explained to me by Zeiss, after the last major update there was a change made to the approach parameters to index the a-axis to 90° after pickup. This was supposedly to increase the useable work volume that was otherwise being consumed during the loading/unloading process.

I am lucky in that I do not have to utilize my full work volume and wanted the CMM to pick up a probe and then go to O,O. This was something Zeiss was not able to come back at me for an answer for.
This evidently is that answer (for all except for the master probe)

I was able to get the other two to return to 0,0 after a pickup. Win!~
For the Master Probe I was able to get was it to go to 90,0. (which its always done, but 0,0 would have been preferable)

Again, thank you!
I never had this problem before but I was also performing RDS CAA qualifications to do all my fitting positions. After hearing how much accuracy I was losing I began manually calibrating all 5 positions, this would explain why I was seeing these return to odd positions all of a sudden.

[[To...]]

SInce you are using RDS-CAA, after it picks up the Master Probe, Calypso recognizes A90 B0 as a legal position so it doesn't need to index back to A0 B0, especially after doing the Fitting Position.

If you have the RDS set up with standard non-CAA probes, and you do the Ref Sphere Position with the Master Probe, it needs to return to A0 B0 because there are no other positions that it can index to. Unless you've added a 2nd stylus to the MasterProbe at A90 B0 for qualifying the Probe Rack. If you do have that configuration, the Master Probe will not index back to A0B0, again, because there is a legal position of A90B0.

So, if you go back and forth between using RDS-CAA and standard probe configurations, you're likely to see indexes to A0B0 sometimes and sometimes not.

By the way, it wasn't an update. It's been like that for many versions.

Before you dump CAA, do your own testing. Create program and use probes in both configurations. The variation may not be enough to worry about. It is certainly more versatile not having to qualify a gazillion different probe angles.

Historically, I've always found that you want to re-qualify an RDS-CAA stylus system, you must do the Full Qualification and not the requalification. Years ago, the re-qualification seemed to have a glitch. However, I don't know how it stands now.