Probe angle

[cmmguy]

Is there any way to query in PCDMIS to determine what the current PH10 physical probe angle is? And is there a command to move a probehead to a particular angle without having a tip assigned to it?

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

Well, you can get the current angle simply by opening up the PROBE UTILITIES window, it will automatically add the current angle to the list of tips, if it is a tip already in the probe file, it won't add it, that is the only way that I know of.

Oh, and it will not move to an angle unless it is in the probe file.

[bob mappes]

if your programing using autofeatures, turn on the PH9

this will let PC_Dmis figure out the optimum probe angles for you

haven't really done much with this myself, but have been happy with what it does so far

bob

[cmmguy]

I am trying to determine the physical A and B angles of a probehead at the very beginning of a program to determine if it will hit anything, in case the last program left the probehead in a "bad" way.

I dont want to rotate the head to a known angle until I know where it is.

[bob mappes]

program in offline mode

this will get your angles, and then you can work on clearance and probe change positions

[#2#]

As a rule I ALWAYS finish my programs by using move points to place the head away from the part and rotate to A0B0.

I think what you are trying to do sounds like a good place to put a comment. Query the operator "Is the probe head in a safe position to rotate?" Doesn't it do this automatically anyway? Mine does.

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

I am trying to determine the physical A and B angles of a probehead at the very beginning of a program to determine if it will hit anything, in case the last program left the probehead in a "bad" way.

I dont want to rotate the head to a known angle until I know where it is.

It will not matter what angle you are at or what angle you need to go to, Pcdmis will ALWAYS rotate the head to the first angle in the program, even when it is already at that angle. AS for finding out where it is and if it can rotate, nope, you are out of luck. This is where the clearance plane really comes in handy, at least in V3.7MR3. They finally fixed MARK-ALL, NO MANUAL bug (from V3.5) so that the manual angle at the beginning will not get marked or used, so the CLEARANCE PLANE move will take place WITHOUT the probe chaning angle, so you can get clear for the tip you need. This is the one time when ya just can't argue about a clearance plane being a handy, useful item.

[VONDY]

At the end of every program, add a move point to place the probe at the top, rear and center of machine. Then rotate your wrist angle to A0 B-180 or +180. This way your head is always out of the way, it will be at the correct wrist angle to change a tip with an auto joint without having to rotate the probe.
Other things to keep in mind are: if you have very long probe extensions, you may want to keep the head low enough so that if it rotates to A105 it won't hit the bridge and make sure it is far enough away from the columns that it won't swing into them. We start out programs with the program loading the tip and rotating to its starting wrist angle before we load the part, that way we are sure that it won't rotate into the part either.
I'm sure there are other ways also, just something more to consider.

[cmmguy]

Yup, I understand all of the stuff about moving to a safe location at the end of the program. I wanted to know if the current physical probe angles could be determined programmatically. It sounds like the answer right now is No. Which kinda sucks... Thanks for the info.

So Matt, you are saying that the Z will move to the Clearance plane prior to the initial probe index? How does it know what the coordinate system is at that point in the program?

[#2#]

cmmguy,

Take a look at this code.

STARTUP    =ALIGNMENT/START,RECALL:, LIST= YES
            ALIGNMENT/END
            MODE/MANUAL
            CHECK/ 0.1,1
            TOUCHSPEED/ 1
            LOADPROBE/6X10DISCX40
            FORMAT/TEXT,OPTIONS,ID,HEADINGS, , ;NOM,TOL,MEAS,DEV,DEVANG,OUTTL, 
            MODE/DCC
            CLEARP/ZPLUS,-3,ZPLUS,0
            MOVE/CLEARPLANE
            MOVE/POINT,NORMAL,1,1,-3
            TIP/T1A0B0, SHANKIJK=0, 0, 1, ANGLE=0
            MODE/MANUAL
PNT1       =FEAT/POINT,RECT
            THEO/2.6393,19.644,-14.0778,0,0,1
            ACTL/2.6393,19.644,-14.0778,0,0,1
            MEAS/POINT,1
            MOVE/CLEARPLANE
            HIT/BASIC,NORMAL,2.6393,19.644,-14.0778,0,0,1,2.6393,19.644,-14.0778,USE THEO = YES
            ENDMEAS/
A2         =ALIGNMENT/START,RECALL:STARTUP, LIST= YES
            ALIGNMENT/TRANS,XAXIS,PNT1
            ALIGNMENT/TRANS,YAXIS,PNT1
            ALIGNMENT/TRANS,ZAXIS,PNT1
            ALIGNMENT/END
            MODE/DCC
PNT2       =FEAT/POINT,RECT
            THEO/0,-0.0001,-0.0002,0,0,1
            ACTL/0,-0.0001,-0.0002,0,0,1
            MEAS/POINT,1           
            HIT/BASIC,NORMAL,0,-0.0001,-0.0002,0,0,1,0,-0.0001,-0.0002,USE THEO = YES

When you run this, it asks for the correct probe. Then, it moves straight up to the clearplane (setup off of recalled external alignment - machine in this case), moves to the front left corner of the machine, rotates the probe and then asks for the manual hits.

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

Yup, I understand all of the stuff about moving to a safe location at the end of the program. I wanted to know if the current physical probe angles could be determined programmatically. It sounds like the answer right now is No. Which kinda sucks... Thanks for the info.

So Matt, you are saying that the Z will move to the Clearance plane prior to the initial probe index? How does it know what the coordinate system is at that point in the program?

Well, your first DCC move should be AFTER an alignment, either in that program or a recalled external alignment and that is the one it will use. If you are looking to do this same thing BEFORE manual stuff, you can simply use the machine coordinates, put it into DCC as the first thing and set the clearance plane just below the upper limit, do the cp-move, the tip change, then go back into manual.