Basic Intro to Mcosmos and Geopack needed please

[peacehaven]

HI and thanks for looking at my post

I have 20+ years experience with Cmms but never used an auto Cmm or Mcosmos before. I am working for a 1st Tier automotive company who have a Mitutoyo Euro C 574 auto machine and Mcosmos software and Gepoack

Most of the parts are cad designed but are mainly curved and not many straight lines. I have asked to go on a course but the managment are dithering, cost etc etc. I know all the arguments re money well spent etc

 

The main issue i am having is that a lot of the progammes have already been written by someone else. When i try to run them more often than not it doesnt work as the probes collide with the job or alternatively cannot find the workpiece even after i have run through teh set up which is usually well designed with pictures etc.

  I think its a basic error but i am struggling to comeplete a job and i have only been here a couple of months.

 

A job i did today crashed becoase the probe seemed to be in the wrong orientation. I found that the probe positions in th calibration sequence that had been done for the job were not correct as stated in the notepad list attached to the probes details. I tried to edit the list to put the right orientiations in but couldnt.

 

Is there a basic few poitners anyone can give me for setting up and running jobs that most be done first for it to work ? I think i am nissing soimething stoopid.

 

we only use 0.7 and 0.5mm dia probes at the moment manually changed

 

Help please.

 

Thanks

Phill

Birmingham and the black country

[absolute technologies]

I used to train on new CMM installs and my preference was to have a dedicated tip calibration program to go along with the inspection program for each job. This way there was no question to "are all the tip positions calibrated and accurate" Too many times us mill guys get CMM results back that are bogus due to bad probe calibration leaving us scratching our heads going around in circles to trouble shoot. It doesn't make sense to me to calibrate a bunch of tip positions that will never be used as it takes some 20 hours to calibrate all the various positions of an articulating probe head just for 1 tip.

 

Also on part alignment I would train them to take some manual points on the part to get a rough alignment prior to running DCC that way it's not as crucial to replicate the setup back to where it was when it was initially programmed. I'm not involved with the CMM where I'm at now but they typically don't do a manual alignment prior to but rather duplicate. IMHO regardless how good your documentation etc you can still have problems especially portability over from machine to another and such.

 

that's my 2¢

cheers!

Len Dye

[peacehaven]

Thanks len. I had figures the probe importance out as well. One issue i had was that a probe programe has been generated but the different angles positions are not as stated on the spec. I calibrated the probe and it wtill kept crashing into the job. Trying to figure out a wat of editing as it doesnt seem easy.

 

All the jobs i have run have quite a good set up with photos and arrows pointing at the various places to touch to set the job up. It sjust that even when doing that a lot of jobs dont run correctly.

 

Anyway thank you fot the info. Hope to get on a course soon as i will really enoy it when i can sort issues out for myself

 

Phill

[justchips]

I used to train on new CMM installs and my preference was to have a dedicated tip calibration program to go along with the inspection program for each job. This way there was no question to "are all the tip positions calibrated and accurate" Too many times us mill guys get CMM results back that are bogus due to bad probe calibration leaving us scratching our heads going around in circles to trouble shoot. It doesn't make sense to me to calibrate a bunch of tip positions that will never be used as it takes some 20 hours to calibrate all the various positions of an articulating probe head just for 1 tip.

 

Also on part alignment I would train them to take some manual points on the part to get a rough alignment prior to running DCC that way it's not as crucial to replicate the setup back to where it was when it was initially programmed. I'm not involved with the CMM where I'm at now but they typically don't do a manual alignment prior to but rather duplicate. IMHO regardless how good your documentation etc you can still have problems especially portability over from machine to another and such.

 

that's my 2¢

cheers!

Len Dye

X1000

 

My thoughts exactly wow!

[peacehaven]

Thanks again len

It was a basic mistake now i have become more familiar with the software

I had not alterered the CMM configutartion to the new probe size and therefore the archives for that probe were not loaded.

All sorted now ..but still struggling due to lack of training

Phill

[absolute technologies]

Thanks again len

It was a basic mistake now i have become more familiar with the software

I had not alterered the CMM configutartion to the new probe size and therefore the archives for that probe were not loaded.

All sorted now ..but still struggling due to lack of training

Phill

that's good to hear that you have it going!

 

Sometimes learning the hard way is the best way in the long run.. This way you'll learn what doesn't work which can be just as important as the way its' suppose to work.

 

Cheers!

Len Dye

[Bob W.]

We have had one of these for a few months and here is what I have done.  We create a coordinate system for each project and so the probe has a good starting point.  The first thing the CMM does is establish the datums then probes the part completely.  We also have a calibration program in the part directory that will calibrate the appropriate angles required to inspect the part so if it hasn't been run in months, run the calibration program, then execute the part program.

 

When we probe parts we install the fixture according to the picture at the beginning of the program, then everything is 100% automatic except the operator putting their name on the inspection report.