Scanning in air (without touching the material)

[[Ma...]]

Hello,

Does anybody know any solution to make a probe follow the path without touching the material? I would like to have a helix path around an imaginary sphere (like image below) but I can't create Sphere with strategy "Helix Path", because machine is looking for a material and it ends up stopping the "measurement". The only way of making it work is to create a Point with strategy "CMM position" and formula for X, Y and Z, but machine is moving in "step-mode" (achieve first point and stop, achieve next point and stop) instead of smooth, continuous motion.

[[Da...]]

If I remember correctly, this can only be done with the option "FlyScan", which used to be available only for the VAST XT heads, but should now be also available for the XXT head, but I'm not 100 % sure. And even with FlyScan, I doubt that it would work with helical paths.

[[Ma...]]

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 thanks, I tried that also, but it still needs first point to probe and while scanning stylus won't drop down.

[[Ma...]]

I may be reading this wrong, but why do you want to air scan a feature that isn't there?

[[Br...]]

Matt, 

 

What is the purpose of scanning in mid air? 

 

[[No...]]

I think there's no way to do this with normal Calypso, although the controller itself would of course be capable of moving the CMM along a helix path when receiving the proper commands.

May I ask why you need this?

Edited 20 hours ago

[[Ma...]]

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 Yes, I know it sounds weird without context but I need this to automatically clean a probe using this cleaning brush https://shop.metrology.zeiss.de/INTERSHOP/web/WFS/IMT-DE-Site/en_DE/-/EUR/ViewProduct-Start?SKU=626170-0011-655&CategoryName=415000&CatalogID=400000&ExtendedNavigation=true

[[Er...]]

You can move the probe in a helix motion without measuring. But in this case there is a risk of the brush causing a collision depending on how deep you go. But Im not going to show how to, since I suspect there might be someone that won't like that information out there.

How ever, there is no reason at all to do it they way you ask for. Just set the spehere diameter to 50 and scan it. We use randomized startangles and numbers of rotations so it dont drag the probe at the same locations every time.

[[Da...]]

As for the usefulness: On a non-Zeiss system I used air-scanning all the time to allow people who threw their own parts on a machine and start the program to not worry about the exact clocking of a round part (usually small rings with holes). I took a plane the exact angular distance of one hole to another, so that the probe had to hit at least one edge of a hole. Due to a light preload of the probe, as soon as the probe hit the edge, it would dip a little deeper in the hole but then settle back, so that I could always get a minimum point where the edge was. That was enough to pre-align the clocking, and then I could be sure to hit a hole to get a precise clocking alignment.

On a Zeiss with Calypso that doesn't work, because the probe stops as soon as it "dips" into the hole. As an alternative, it's possible to program the path so, that the probe dips, but can't drop deep enough into the hole, so that it's just "surfing the edge" of the hole. You get a minimum point there as well to pre-align the part. Saved me lots of headaches.