Need some Zeiss advice

[Wes Cisco]

Well a vendor of my company has purchased an old Zeiss Numerex from the Air Force. Now I am doing a bit of moonlighting, approved and endorsed by my company. I had this guy buy a new computer the last time I was out, and I am in the the process of downloading 3.7 MR 3. Then I get to play the portlock games. But last time I was here we had 3.5 running and the jog box for the machine was funky. It has two joysticks, each with a button, they do not rotate. One is labeled and moves x and y axis, the other moves z, and is labeled for rotation, but it does not rotate the head at the moment. This is a PH50, there is a HCU1 box too, so I believe this is a motorized head. I can track all that down thru Renishaw if I need to. What I need to know is when I made a little program to check the block, I had to keep pushing one of the buttons on one of the joysticks. It acted like an nc machine in single block mode. I can post some pics of the jogbox if that will help. Anyone have any experience with Numerex or Zeiss jogboxes? Many Thanks in Advance.

[JamesMannes]

Wes, the 3rd shift guy by us came from a Zeiss machine, I'll try to catch him before he runs out the door. Post a pic just in case?

[Wes Cisco]

I will post some tomorrow, I don't have access now, I am at home and I only mailed them to my work email. I won't be going back out there until next Friday, so I have some time to see what I can learn about the box. I updated the hasp driver, now they have to call for the .exe file to reprogram it. Thanks for the response though. If your man could/would help, have him send me a PM so I can email or PM him if or when I run into a problem. I am hoping the new computer solved most of what I saw the last time I was out there.

[Spook]

Wes,

I don't think the joystick for "Z" / "Rotate" will rotate the probe head. Ususally that is for machines with a rotary stage. You should be able to move the probe head with the software though once you get the computer communicating with the machine.

[Wes Cisco]

James,
You are quite correct. I can rotate with the HCU and also with the software. I am attaching pictures of the box. If anyone is familar with this, I mostly want to know what the functios of the two buttons on the joysticks are, and how I can assign their functions, (if possible). Also, if anyone has experienced a Zeiss machine behaving like an nc machine in single block, what/why/ how do I fix that? I wrote a simple program to align to the block and measure 4 or 5 features, when I executed the program the machine would stop after every move/feature until I pushed one of those joystick buttons, then it would make the next move and stop, etc. TIA

[dwade]

The PH50 is a motorized head. Rneishaw no longer services them and the replacement is of the PH10 family (not really sure of which model). If the PH50 is still working they were good little units but you could not put anything big or long on it. It was a light duty probe head.

[craiger_ny]

I think Doberman is a Zies guy. PM him if he does not weigh in. He may be able to help.

Craig

[Wes Cisco]

Thanks Dwade,
I plan to check the Renishaw website for full specs. It should be very adequate for this machine and what it will be checking. It seems to measure well enough aside from the need for constant prodding. The owner tells me that when it was installed and calibrated the tech told him it was one of the more accurate machines he had calibrated, for whatever that is worth.

[JamesMannes]

Well a vendor of my company has purchased an old Zeiss Numerex from the Air Force. Now I am doing a bit of moonlighting, approved and endorsed by my company. I had this guy buy a new computer the last time I was out, and I am in the the process of downloading 3.7 MR 3. Then I get to play the portlock games. But last time I was here we had 3.5 running and the jog box for the machine was funky. It has two joysticks, each with a button, they do not rotate. One is labeled and moves x and y axis, the other moves z, and is labeled for rotation, but it does not rotate the head at the moment. This is a PH50, there is a HCU1 box too, so I believe this is a motorized head. I can track all that down thru Renishaw if I need to. What I need to know is when I made a little program to check the block, I had to keep pushing one of the buttons on one of the joysticks. It acted like an nc machine in single block mode. I can post some pics of the jogbox if that will help. Anyone have any experience with Numerex or Zeiss jogboxes? Many Thanks in Advance.

Wes, I know you like to push buttons but the 3rd shift fella was kind of wondering... what is the problem/question? What do think the buttons should do?
By the way neither myself nor the 3rd shift fella know what a cnc does in single block mode, maybe that's where the confusion lies?

[Wes Cisco]

Wes, I know you like to push buttons but the 3rd shift fella was kind of wondering... what is the problem/question? What do think the buttons should do?
By the way neither myself nor the 3rd shift fella know what a cnc does in single block mode, maybe that's where the confusion lies?

Well, all I did last night was download 3.7MR3, & the hasp driver, b/c they have to call B&S for the .exe file. So I don't remember for sure which of the two buttons, but it acted similar to the "done" button on my excel's jogbox. What single block does is stop after each "block" of code, until the operator pushes cycle start, a block might be a move to command or it might be a peckdrill cycle. So with this program I wrote and tried, I performed the manual alignment and the cmm moves to the first move point and stops, then I push the button on the jogbox, (I discovered this by accident, just pushing buttons trying to figure out what was wrong), and it takes a vector point hit and stops until I push the button, then it takes the next vector point and stops. . . and so on. When it gets to an autofeature, it will measure the entire feature,(circle, cylinder, line, etc) before stopping. I think the old computer was using windoze 98 and was definetely barely powerful enough to handle 3.5 MR2, everything was very slow, so that may have been the bulk of the problem. When I was there the last time I told them replace the computer 1st and we will see where we are after that. Then I did not hear from them for a month or two and I figured they had given up on the machine or else had it under control. Now they say they want me to comeover at least 2 or 3 times a month and help them "make it happen". They pay quite well, so I am willing. . .

[#2#]

Wes,

Two things...

1 - you can execute a block of commands by highlighting the commands then go file-partial execution-execute block. CMM will execute those commands and stop. Could be something with this but doesn't quite fit.

2 - Breakpoints. Do you have any breakpoints in your program. When the program is running it executes one command at a time. When it gets to a breakpoint it stops. If you press the done button or click continue it will start where it left off. It sounds as if there is a breakpoint after every command. Maybe a setting somewhere?

[Wes Cisco]

Wes,

Two things...

1 - you can execute a block of commands by highlighting the commands then go file-partial execution-execute block. CMM will execute those commands and stop. Could be something with this but doesn't quite fit.

Yep, I do that all the time, not the case here.

2 - Breakpoints. Do you have any breakpoints in your program. When the program is running it executes one command at a time. When it gets to a breakpoint it stops. If you press the done button or click continue it will start where it left off. It sounds as if there is a breakpoint after every command. Maybe a setting somewhere?

Yes, it did act like it would if there had a breakpoint after every movepoint, clearplane, autofeature, etc, but there were not any breakpoints in the program.

Thanks for the ideas though.

[#2#]

Thanks for the ideas though.

Ok, after researching the breakpoints a little (I don't use them) it looks like you can have PC-DMIS put breakpoints after every feature, move point, etc. Maybe theirs has this turned on for some reason and for some reason the breakpoints aren't displaying.

To turn them on go edit-breakpoints-insert defaults.

To turn them off go edit-breakpoints-remove defaults.

I would double check to make sure they are removed.

[Arenw]

We have a Zeiss "Eclipse" with the stock Zeiss head on it. I have some, all be it limited, experience on the machine. I have never used the button on the "Z" joystick, but the button on the X/Y joystick is multi-functional (with Calypso software). With Calypso you use this button to set clearance planes in the alignment/clearnace plane phase. When you have a characteristic open and are in the strategy window it is used to set "CMM Positions"=move points. I'm not sure how it works with PC-DMIS though. Hope this helps.

[Doug Jimison]

Wes,
I don't know if you've seen the attached documents or if they'll even be of any help. They are explanations of the PC-DMIS machine interface for Zeiss so you might take a look at them.