What do y'all use for storing probe tips that are not in use? I'm thinking the little plastic boxes with compartments in them would be good and allow room for the compartments to have a sticker/ label in them with the probe size. But I feel no need to try 5 things myself when I KNOW one of you has something simple and cool. :-)
We use a probe rack; it's pretty nice, but only to make things less tedious.
It's got some laser beams so the CMM knows if there's actually a probe there or not.
I don't prefer to turn them on; seems like something that would cause more problems than it would solve, so I leave it unplugged.
Regardless, I like it. I try to make things as smooth as possible, and if i can, completely remove the human element from programs.
If I need to change a probe, I can in a few clicks or less, quickly, reliably, and most importantly, automatically.
If I have a program that runs for 2 hours and then needs to change to a new probe it can just do that, instead of me getting my grubby little mitts on it.
Cleaning would happen less often as well, I'd imagine.
Other than that, you could make one I'm sure, as a cheaper (abeit with much more work on your end) alternative.
To change the probe, we use the LoadProbe command. When I execute that, the probe moves to a predefined location, moves in front of the space in the rack for whichever probe, moves into the space, and moves into/away from the probe depending on if it's loaing or unloading. Then it moves back, closing the cover, goes back to the predefined location, and waits for the next input.
(I suppose you'd have to have one/seen one to get the picture...)
Our CMM was not necessarily purchased for tighter tolerances or better inspection, moreso for automating it. We get a lot of parts through here (machine shop), and if we can stick 'em in the CMM to be checked in an hour, I've got an hour to work on other parts. We've got probably ±.05mm as our tightest tolerance to be check in the CMM, but those have to be verified with a hard gage anyways (pointless CMM inspection IMO)
We've got a Vision machine. Most of our current programs measure with a touch probe, then unload and use the camera to finish it off, and once the program is done it reloads the probe. This is partly due to the fact that I honestly didn't know I didn't have to do that, and that for some parts we have the touch probe would crash before the camera could get into position
If I had to manually load/unload the probe each time, it would certainly add to my run time.
Heck, I'm currently checking about 700 pieces on a program that takes 3 minutes to run (just a couple features). It would take about twice as much time if I had to do it manually, simply because now I can run a part, and do other things while it runs, such as get the next part ready to be inspected, or some actual work!
Otherwise it'd run for a minute and a half, I'd have to load the probe, let it run for a minute and a half, unload the probe...
To me the rack seemed like an afterthought, but it does honestly save me time. I can make an 8 hour calibration program for 6 tips (exaggeration I'd hope) and run it at night, come back in the morning and I've got fresh probes, as opposed to manually calibrating and losing a whole day of inspection (use-case dependant). It's really only beneficial if you run multiple probes in the same program. I could handle manually changing the tips as long as I could use
that tip for
this program.
I don't know about you guys, but I hate touching the dang thing. It always swears at me in TV language! (beep!)
Automation is important to us simply because there's a lot to check, but if we didn't have the rack already, I honestly don't believe we'd get one.
Sheesh, the thing was only a quarter-million dollars, lo-and-behold they shell out $200 for a rack.
I like how my post has nothing to do with storing probe tips; strictly the rack.
We don't have a good system. I've got a desk with some drawers in it. There are various pieces strewn between drawers. It is quite disorganized.
Perhaps not a good system, but maybe one of those "Don't do this!" ideas!
Been having a lot of those lately. Not really anything productive. Lol!
+1's for the plastic boxes; they look quite efficient. I'd add another +1 for the labels but the forum said no
I wish my solution could be a probe rack and changer... I keep getting "well why can't you just check the whole part?" Well, because if you want reliable results that mean ANYTHING, different features need different probes and probe configurations to check those features well... I mean... I can and AM taking a circle of hits 0.2" deep in a 3" long bore and if that circle measures good, we call the whole bore good.. but if I build a star probe, I won't be able to get in all the other places we want to get to... yeah... it's a work in progress...
There... I rambled back. <3
Everyone here makes my day & helps keep me relatively sane. Thank you. :-)
