Probe Calibration

[Laoschbag]

A previous employee snapped off one of our 1mm Probes and ended up changing some things in the calibration settings because we were not sure what the proper length of the probe was that he broke. Fast forward to now, we've replaced this probe with the previous length and I find that even after calibrating correctly, the probe was not taking points in the correct "Z" due to the length. The only solution I could think of was to measure the distance between the two probes we have and make the correction in the "Z" offset for the actual probe. It seems to have fixed our problem but is this the correct thing to do when you have a situation like that?

I am a 15 year Calypso programmer and when it comes to switching out probes even if it is a different length, all you have to due is re-qualify the stylus and it will generate the "X", "Y" & "Z" locations.

[jtrofatter]

It does seem this is all you could do. If offsets were made to make a different sized probe take correct hits, all you could do is offset it again to correct the issue. Or rebuild the probe file to ensure that the probe file has the same size and length as the physical probe. The big difference between Calypso and PCDMIS in this regard is that with Calypso, the head tells the software the length and diameter of your stylus, where with PCDMIS, you tell the software what has been built onto the head.

[RandomJerk]

This is wrong. Once the probe finishes qualification any adjustment you make to the offsets invalidates the qualification.

First, you can tell what the stylus was supposed to be because the description is right in the probe file. If that was incorrect and the "previous guy" did a work around, the workaround is wrong. Put the correct stylus into the probe build, if it isn't available, create it in the probe.dat file.

If the stylus was replaced with the incorrect length and you attempted an autocalibrate routine, it will probably crash.

If you attempted it from the probe utility window and did a manual hit for initial sphere location, that will qualify, but the moment it attempts to qualify another probe at a different "A" angle, it will crash.

If you aren't properly locating the qualification sphere, you're losing the interchangeability of tips qualified at different times and the correct relationship between different probe files.

[Douglas]

100% agree... if the probe THEO is not close enough then the probe file is junk, or the physical build is bad... they gotta match