Pro Plus Touch Probe Insights

[Consultingwoodworker]

Dave,

How high are you setting the Z-axis start point? It should be less than 1/2 inch above the highest point of the object being scanned.

Also, the "height" setting in the Scan control panel needs to be greater than the Z start position. If the part is higher than the overall height setting, the probe will glide above the low points, and when it is not touching anything, the probe is seen to be inactive by the computer. I do not know that inactivity causes the skipping issue, but if it does, that would explain why flicking it helps.

Can you post a photo of the scan set up?

Ralph

[theremin]

Thanks for the input. I've been setting Z within 1/8 or so of the highest point on the scanned object, and the height setting is set quite a bit higher than Z0--like maybe double. I ran the old probe again last night on an 8 or 9 hour scan, and it worked flawlessly. Maybe it's finally broken in? I'll try it some more and see. I did take shorter steps this time--this particular scan was an archtop guitar top. It's all sweeping contours and no detail, plus it's big so I was scanning at .25 and .25 steps for a first cut to see how it looked. Many failures. Changing to .1 steps, it worked fine. I wonder if the combination of long sweeping contours and long steps could be the culprit? Also, I wonder if I should change the speed? I've been leaving it at the default 10 ipm. Last night's scan came out beautifully...

Dave

[jeb2cav]

Hi Dave - I've been running my scans at 30 ipm. At some point in resolution fidelity, the scan won't reach that ipm as it has to take a reading at each step.

I did notice that early use of the probe was "better" with smaller steps - fewer hangs. I don't have a problem with this if it is breakin. It is interesting that the original probe was flawless last night. Were all your original scans at this large step value before deciding it was not working as advertised?

Were there any significant temperature changes where the probe was stored and used (just curious as it might be an environmental thing contributing to it working better, or working now).

[Consultingwoodworker]

Were those typos or are you actually scanning a 1/4" intervals?

The default is set for 0.040, and I typically scan at 0.01

Ralph

[theremin]

Hey guys,

The earlier scans were all at smaller intervals--as small as .01 and as large as .1 inch. Last night's was .1 inch--the only other perfect scan I've gotten was also at .1 inch, but with much more variance in the Z axis. I think it may be a case of late break-in. The old probe sure worked well on that last scan, but the new one didn't at the same settings (but with fewer hours on the probe).

That was no typo on the 1/4" intervals though. I was copying a handcarved top profile I had done and the curve is gentle enough on the arching that anything smaller than that is really overkill unless that's what it takes to get the probe to work right. Scanning the top even at .1 inch takes many hours. But of course that is when I'm running at 10 ipm. I got to thinking about the timeout issue you mentioned earlier and thought that the combination of a large step and a slow feed rate might combine to create timeout situations. I'll try the faster feed rate and see what happens.

As far as temperature is concerned, my shop is running at about 65 degrees right now. The probes have been in the same room and all of the scans have been done at about that temperature.

At any rate, I'm going to try a few more scans with both probes before I send one of them back to Rockler. I'm hopeful that between tweeking the parameters and the brek in period that my problem has been resolved.

Dave

[theremin]

OK, another update. Old probe at pretty much any setting is working flawlessly. Things that used to fail don't any more (rah!). I'm going to ship Rockler back the new probe. It appears to me that it just took a little longer for the probe to break in than what others have experienced. The thing is really working well now (I hope I'm not dooming myself by saying so!). I did try running it faster, and that works fine. I tried going back to the 1/4" scans, and that worked fine.

Thanks to all for the assistance. Thanks to Rockler for great customer service. And thanks to Next Wave for a very nice product. The Pro Plus along with the touch probe is now doing everything I had hoped it would.

Dave