RDS-CAA head

[[Me...]]

Good morning fellas,

I just started a new job near Buffalo NY. My Contura has a RDS head and I have zero experience with that type of head. If any of you can help me with calibration and any tips and tricks that would be GREAT!

Thanks1

[[Cl...]]

Couple tips I could offer.

The RC list (stylus icon, upper left of attachment) is were you can create your stylus (angle/rotations).
A = rotations B = Angles. From here you can also probe a feature the requires a specific rotation and
angle for the RDS, and Calypso will automatically calculate the necessary rotation and angle to set
the RDS to, click on - (Change angle setting - to feature)

[[Me...]]

What is fitting position? And as for the list of angles and rotations, do those have to be calibrated?

[[Lo...]]

When creating a new stylus and you want to calibrate using CAA, you will need to check the box RDSCAA. I haven't found a way to go back to select that option after a stylus is already created.

RDSCAA takes a little longer to calibrate as it does 12 positions and then ALL positions are available.

[[Cl...]]

Before I used the RDS/XXT, I was using a Spectrum with an ST3 head.

[[Me...]]

When you say ALL positions are available, does that mean by scanning as well?

[[Lo...]]

Yes... Once calibrated using the RDSCAA, All 20,736 positions are available.

[[To...]]

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Technically, with the new RDS design, you can only articulate ±155° in B, so you only have 18,000 positions, but who's counting? Just trying to be precise....

[[Da...]]

While it is true that it will be ok for all Gazillion positions, the CAA does lose some accuracy. If you are holding very tight tolerances it is recommended to qualify the actual angles that you are using.... If you want to test the accuracy, try a simple Z hit at several different angles and compare the results. If the results aren't up to snuff , try qualifying each of the angles separately and try again. You will see the most variation on locations, not on diameters , so depending on how tight things are adjust accordingly.

I haven't had a RDS head in quite a while, maybe they're better now, but it wouldn't hurt to test the system before going all out.

[[Ro...]]

From my personal experience ive found that programs that run very well on a Vast XT gold need to be slowed down quite a bit or your log fills up with "air scanning" errors or another similar pop up saying something like "unexpected results".
But other than that i like the XXT head very much.There seems to be a lot of logic built into the Zeiss RDS head that isnt present in the B&S heads. things like clearing to +Z before the head articulates is automatic in the programs i work with, where in PC-D you have to write those moves in.

But the RDS does seem to have issues with Qualification (personal experience). Just last week i had to send our Detroit facility to Tech Support line because they were having errors during Qual that i couldn't fix over the phone. I haven't heard back what the problem was this time, but they've had techs in before trying to get their machine to qualify properly. Actually we had 1 Zeiss tech set them up with an 8mm qual sphere and a 30mm qual sphere in order to get everything to work. i thought that was a bit ridiculous as daily qualification of 3 probes took over an hour with that system. a later Zeiss tech got things straightened out and now they only use the 30mm sphere.

I would almost suggest going back to basic zeiss training. if i remember right they spend a lot of time in tip creation and qualification in basic.