Program stopping in mid inspection

[[Ja...]]

A year later and we still have not been able to resolve this issue on our shop floor CMM (hasn't been used too much over the past year) and now it appears to be happening a little bit on our identical quality room CMM that is almost solely operated by just myself and I know there have been no crashes that could have caused damage to the head.

I have tried storing the programs locally on the computer instead of over a network, cleaned all contacts, replaced stylus probes, run through a few other options per a Zeiss service ticket except the costly replacing the XXT head option but the issue persists. I really don't know what to do at this point, the shop floor CMM is due for calibration in July so when the Zeiss tech is in here maybe they will be able to see something I can't and act on it? If the head does need to be replaced then hopefully they can be present to run through some additional diagnostics on site.

Wondering if this is an issue that anyone else is seeing an uptick in or if I just have some sort of ghost in my machine over here.

Edited February 10, 2025

[[Ma...]]

Same problems on our version. It's sporadic - once in a week or longer.

Possibly soft/communication problems - just force close Calypso and it works. I have only seen that on programs with CAD views, but PiWeb is also doing that.

[[Ja...]]

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Thanks Martin, that let's me know I'm not totally losing it! 

The majority of our programs do have CAD models/views and we do use multiple reports/PiWeb on almost everything we run so it's hard for me to say if the issue exists on programs without them.

I do wonder if it is just sporadic network or CMM to PC connectivity issues, the randomness of the events seems to suggest that but I really don't know how to control that on my end. Maybe I will try floating this issue by our IT folks to see if that is something they would be able to monitor and pinpoint and go from there but even if they do see that as an issue I'm not sure what fixes would be available. This issue is starting to make me look bad in front of my operators since I have not been able to find a fix and I'm not sure where to go from here.

[[Je...]]

As it relates to network storage of inspection plans:
ZEISS Portal

[[Ja...]]

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Thanks Jeffrey, I remember going through the knowledge base when this issue first started occurring and reading this or something very much like this and verifying we were set up correctly to run programs off our network and doing it again when I submitted a service ticket for this issue and the tech walked me through it again. Unfortunately I don't believe the issue is stemming from anything mentioned there as when I experimented with storing the programs locally I was still having the same issue.

It seems very random and sporadic, sometimes I'll go days without the issue occurring and other days close to 50% of the time runs stall out and I have to red light the program and restart them. That's leading me to believe we are having some kind of network micro-outages or miscommunications between the network and/or the CMM/Controller/PC but I am not sure how to verify this. 

[[Je...]]

Make sure the PC is connected directly to the CMM.  No hardware should be between the two pieces of equipment.  No hubs, no routers, no switches etc.  When you see the CMM pause, run command prompt "ping cmm_1"   Ensure you are getting a low latency response.

ALSO, make sure you don't have an anti-virus or firewall program or auto-backup event that is accessing your inspection plans or actual values during the run.  

[[Ja...]]

Thanks Jeffrey, I will dig into it a bit next time it happens.

[[Ja...]]

Jeffrey, I appreciate your assistance and troubleshooting.

I had the CMM stall out on me a few times yesterday and I tried to run the "ping cmm_1" command and each time it showed no latency and we have no devices of any kind between the CMM and the PC. Our IT thinks the possibility of any anti-virus/firewall/back-up programs interfering is unlikely because they say nothing has changed on their end and this has been an ongoing issue on one CMM for some time and is just now starting to happen on a second one. So still thoroughly stumped as to the why and how this is happening. 

 

[[Ja...]]

I would like to follow up on this issue that has plagued me with increasing frequency to say I believe I finally found the culprit!

Last week I was doing a semi-annual general maintenance on our Duramax VAST XXT CMMs; wiping clean the scales, greasing, looking for wear and tear, and noticed one of the contact balls on our star probe head adapter on our troubled shop floor CMM seemed loose. Upon closer inspection and gently wiping it with a static free sheet and some alcohol my suspicions were confirmed when the contact ball popped out!

As you can kind of see from my blurry picture the ball is now missing but some the glue or soldering that held it in is still somewhat present. We also haven't needed to replace it in quite some time as it is the older silver color ball instead of the newer gold plated ones Zeiss switched to a few years back. I swapped it with a brand new adapter plate last week and haven't had any stops since. It is hard to say how long that contact was loose but it does make sense that the issue with the probe stopping on the part was getting increasingly bad as I assume the contact ball was becoming more loose over time.

I wish I had caught this sooner but by just replacing all of the stylus components I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint the issue as the contact ball had to get loose enough for me to be able to notice. Anyway, hopefully this will help some of you down the line too if you run into a similar issue.

Edited Monday at 04:13 PM