Probe Rack Assignments

[[Ei...]]

Is there any way to get more than 15 holders assigned for a VAST head without using rack assignments? When I tried using rack assignments and calling a stylus system from "page 2" of my rack assignments, Calypso alerted me that the stylus system wasn't available. Any hints appreciated!

[[Ke...]]

You should be able to have as many holders assigned in the automatic stylus system change window as you would like, without using probe rack assignments (well, there's probably an upper limit, but I have yet to encounter it), however the window only shows 3 "tiers" with 5 holders on each tier at a time. The up and down arrow keys at the top of that window will function as essentially page up/page down to allow you to go to further pages to be able to select those holder for assigning, teaching location, etc.

[[Ei...]]

THANK YOU!!!

So easy I missed it!

[[No...]]

At an advanced Zeiss training I once met two guys from a well-known aerospace company who only made offline programs. They said they used around 800 different probes, but they didn't know about rack assignments and asked for an easier way to organize their probes.
I never used a Calypso version without assignments, but according to the trainer, before they existed the only way to manage such a large number of probes without having to modify the holder's contents all the time was to create a copy of each holder for each probe. So for, say, 10 holders A-J and 800 probes this would make a total of 8000 holders?! 😱 (A1, A2, A3, ... A800, B1, B2, B3....)
I have no idea if such a high number is possible, but obviously they did something along that way. I tried to tell them about assignments, but they wouldn't listen. Bad luck 🤣

[[Ro...]]

No actual help here....
I think the Automatic probe changer system needs some serious upgrading, i dont think its changed at all since i first started programming in 06-07.
I hate that the display is only 5 wide, when many XT or XTR CMM's have 6 or possibly much more with an XXT setup.
I hate that sometimes you have to click on the individual probe socket to load or store a probe, but you have to go to the drop down menu to define location or change the stylus system.
And i've never had a good experience using the green directional arrows, i tell all my trainees that i'm sure they have a purpose but i've only ever used them to ruin my rack setup.
I think the manual pickup needs a refresh as well, i don't like that the dropdown menu for pickup is only 4 or 5 probes long and the scrolling is never very good.
By the way, is there a way to change the 5 second manual drop timer to 8 or 10 seconds?
If i don't spend 30 seconds bringing the head forward or to the left, i got to run. That was never an issue till i tweaked my knee during the Christmas snow storm. im less agile than i used to be.

[[Je...]]

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I have a strong opinion that the focus of Zeiss towards Calypso development should be on refining and improving what already exists. Many of the features that made Calypso standout as a winner years ago are still integral but need functional improvement.

I emphasize the word functional. Improvements should not just look new and cool but be a true value-add.

Your suggestion of probe rack improvement in the software is an excellent example of something that would be a value-add. Make a My Voice suggestion, and I'll be the first to vote it up.
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My Voice:
https://portal.zeiss.com/my-voice/softw ... ec3253c37c

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[[Ro...]]

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Yeah unless things have changed drastically, ill continue writing my suggested changes down, then corking it into a bottle, and throwing that bottle into lake michigan in hopes that it makes its way to Germany.
Sometimes i just yell my suggested changes into the clouds hoping the reflection off the stratosphere will help deliver my message.

[[Ke...]]

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I have a few things that might improve your experience with some of these items, you may know some or all of them, but I hope they may make things easier for some people:

The green directional arrows-Up and Down are just scrolling the rack window, they don't move the pocket's representation. The left and right arrows move the currently selected pocket's representation in the window left or right one position per click to reorganize the holders in the Stylus Change window.

In the manual pickup window, after you hit the dropdown you can hit a letter or number key on the keyboard and it will take you to the first entry in the scroll list that starts with that (ie, if I hit "m" it will go to my Masterprobe, because it is the first M probe alphabetically in my list).

The manual drop timer-to my knowledge there is no way to change the timer, but I frequently will click the manual release button in Calypso but not click "ok" to start the countdown, then take the Joystick box with me to where the probe is, and use the "return" key on the Joystick box to start the countdown.
I hope these are of some value to the people here.

[[Ro...]]

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Ooh yeah i understand what the arrows do, but i don't understand the situation as to why i would ever use them.
In your 2nd picture, the sockets are now in order B A C, but nothing has changed on the physical probe rack, but now you've setup a situation where the next person can easily put the cmm into maximum destruct mode because the racking systems don't match.
Say for instance i load a rarely used Disk probe into the head and do a quick qualification on it. While that's happening i remove the probe from Socket A. Then i assign the disk to "the first socket" which i thought was A but is actually B.
so now when i go to start my program the first thing to happen is the machine will take the disk probe and smash it into whatever is currently sitting in socket B.
Now I'm down for an hour doing a full recalibration and re teaching the rack, possibly out a couple hundred bucks.
Nobody has ever explained to me why moving the virtual sockets around would be a better idea than leaving them alone.

[[Ke...]]

The only time I have ever really had a use for it was when we added a pocket into an empty space between other pockets, the new pocket in software automatically goes to the last space in the Window, so we used the arrows to move it to match where it was on the physical rack.

[[Ga...]]

"M" and "N" have been in the wrong order in the interface on one of my CMMs for a long time. The operators don't look at it as alphabetical order, however. They look at the label on the physical pocket and match it up with the label in the interface. We move probes around quite a bit and somehow this doesn't end up being an issue. I asked one of the operators today if they wanted me to "fix" it. He said it wouldn't make any difference to how he does his thing.

We're three levels high with 3 positions, 6 positions and 7 positions. Nothing physical has ever matched the interface of 5x3 so I guess they never got in the habit of relating to it that way.