Question on bringing up programs on multiple CMM stations

[ShankCrusher]

We have four CMM's. They are all in different locations in the facility.

We use external alignments for all our programs. Some jobs run on multiple machines, some dont.

Recently, one of the CMM stations is having an issue when you open up certain programs to view a report or data, its hosing the data and throwing the dimensions in which appears to be a mirrored situation in the X or maybe even machine coordinates. Not sure. Its not every program. Some of them come up fine....

My initial thoughts were only the ones that were never ran at this station were getting hosed. But even some of them, when we get the "external alignment not found" message, come up fine.

Why would PCDMIS destroy the data when opening something. We dont have this problem on any of the other stations, whether it ran on that machine or not. We can always open up our programs and the data is how it appeared at last run.

This seems like it started happening after a IT guy came down to try and get PC-DMIS converter installed on the machine (admin rights issue perhaps).

[JEFMAN]

You could check if the default folder of external alignment is set with the right settings.

[gcr6251]

It almost sounds like some one changed the XYZ for the CMM. That happened to me more than once.

[N8VES]

You need to get IT back to that machine and find out just what they changed on it since no other CMM is having problems. You might even want to get Hexagon support involved as well. In order for PCDMIS to run as expected every USER (or user group on the domain) signed into the PC must have full local admin rights on the computer. If files are being pulled and/or written to on a server, the user (or user group) must have read, write and modify privileges on EVERY folder PCDMIS uses.

You mentioned that some part programs run on multiple CMMs. Keep in mind that while all of the CMMs can pull and run part programs from the same folder on the network, EACH CMM MUST have a separate folder for alignments and probes. Even if the CMMs are identical, the calibration mappings are unique to that CMM and you will NEVER be able to set up the same fixture in EXACTLY the same spot on CMM B that was originally ran on CMM A. If all of the CMMs are setup correctly, you SHOULD be getting the "external alignment not found" message and perhaps even message that a probe is not defined message when the program ran on CMM A is run on CMM B for the first time.

Also, go to one the the CMMs that is not having problems (preferably an identical CMM) and bring up the settings menu (F5). Write down all of the settings in the General and Part/Machine tabs. Then go to the CMM that is having problems and compare the settings. The scale factor should be set at 1 and it is extremely rare to have to set it at any other number. A change of just + or -.005 would have a significant effect on part readings without being noticed when the program runs and executes its moves and measures features (grounds for termination of a mischievous employee). On the Part/Machine tab, check the axis settings. Is X set to X, Y to Y and Z to Z? I have a Global 7.10.7 and some times with a very long part I need to work from the long side of the CMM instead of in front of it. In that case it's easier to swap X and Y so that the RCU works the way I want it to. You just have to remember to swap them back after your done.