Today I was running a program on our CMM (Global S Green 9.12.8). Stopped the program as it was going to the first clearplane, and then noticed the CMM bridge was still moving. I turned my controller speed down to 0. Tried to modify in the edit window, and it let me, even while it was running. Then I executed my program while it was "running" and immediately hit cancel it again as I did previously to see if it will overwrite the actions it was reading. I then closed PCDMIS. I turned speed up again to see if it was still moving. It was. So I did a full reboot of the CMM, and it's fine now. Has anyone ever ran into this before? A rogue program running even without the PCDMIS software?
neil.challinor It may be the case where defined scans cannot be stopped without pressing E-Stop but that is not what I seen and it doesn't appear to be true for the original poster either.
What I seen was on a Global Performance with a DC240 controller, PH10MQ, TP-20 probe. You are just measuring typical stuff (points, circles, ...) and then you can end up in this situation. Nothing short of a controller reboot or allowing it to complete the buffered commands will stop it and that includes pressing E-Stop. This company described it to me and I actually experienced it once when working on the machine. E-Stop shuts the machine off but once machine start is pressed it continues where it left off.
I am almost certain it is a firmware bug. In PC-DMIS, when execution of anything is cancelled, the software sends a binary sequence (similar to CTRL-C or CTRL-Z) that the controller interprets as a stop and purge. For whatever reason the buffered commands are not purged in some cases and you end up with a zombie CMM.
Recreating this is not easy. As I mentioned the company almost could do it but not quite. There is some detail or step missing that was critical to recreating this problem. This company just accepted that this can happen on this particular machine from time to time and deal with it.
Rondog , when you hit the E-Stop are you sure you are cancelling the program correctly. I always after I am certain I have hit E-Stop then program stop, then cacel that BEFORE I contiue I slow the mcahine all the way down.
neil.challinor It may be the case where defined scans cannot be stopped without pressing E-Stop but that is not what I seen and it doesn't appear to be true for the original poster either.
What I seen was on a Global Performance with a DC240 controller, PH10MQ, TP-20 probe. You are just measuring typical stuff (points, circles, ...) and then you can end up in this situation. Nothing short of a controller reboot or allowing it to complete the buffered commands will stop it and that includes pressing E-Stop. This company described it to me and I actually experienced it once when working on the machine. E-Stop shuts the machine off but once machine start is pressed it continues where it left off.
I am almost certain it is a firmware bug. In PC-DMIS, when execution of anything is cancelled, the software sends a binary sequence (similar to CTRL-C or CTRL-Z) that the controller interprets as a stop and purge. For whatever reason the buffered commands are not purged in some cases and you end up with a zombie CMM.
Recreating this is not easy. As I mentioned the company almost could do it but not quite. There is some detail or step missing that was critical to recreating this problem. This company just accepted that this can happen on this particular machine from time to time and deal with it.
Rondog , when you hit the E-Stop are you sure you are cancelling the program correctly. I always after I am certain I have hit E-Stop then program stop, then cacel that BEFORE I contiue I slow the mcahine all the way down.
