Calypso CNC User Forums

Dear Dave,
can you help me about change tools using the Probe as the Master Tool?

MT in a NRH holder

I get an error...

This is my procedure:

1) Axes (x,y,z) referenced

2) M-Coord TC Position OK

3) Button "TCP TP Installed" in Settings page ON - Rnd Diam 0 - Max Dist 130.00

4) Tooling page: "TC Auto TCP" ON
"TC Auto TLO" ON
"Skip RH Tools" OFF
"Master T Mode" ON

Master Tool #250

4) Tool 250: Holder Type NHR
Lenght Offset 0
Wear 0
PTL 0

Tool Units mm
Diameter 3.0
Wear 0

5) T250M6 --> Probe move on TCP and then TC Status --> "Mount tool in Spindle"

6) Cycle Start and then the probe touch off the touch plate semi-permanently mounted below the Tool Change Position (see pictures) and then return to TCP
coordinates.
TC Status --> "Auto TLO Probing ERROR" ((((((((((
The error is: "Control RESET, Tool change Aborted

The probe work well in all your Probing Functions...

Thank you.
Best Regards
carlo

Hi,
first questions:
1) I see that the master tool # DRo is set = 250; is the probe tool # DRO ALSO set = 250?
2) I see from the screen shot (the underlined buttons) that either you are running MSM pro in trial mode, or you have the personal edition installed.
What version and what edition of MSM are you running?
3) The probing error is the primary event -
(Mach gets reset because the probing error results in the control not knowing the length of the tool, and it is not safe to continue after that).
Where there any other messages about the cause of the error?
Click the history button - are there any informative messages in the error log that the history button displays?

Dave

Thank you!

1) YES
2) Mach3 R3.043.066 - MachStdMill 2.0.7 Professional Edition Evaluation
3) This is the log (History button)

Mon - 01:03:44 ---Program Startup
Mon - 01:04:10 ---MachStdMill Initialized
Mon - 01:06:24 ---Jog Mode Disabled for MDI input
Mon - 01:06:31 ---Tool Change...Press CycleStart to continue.
Mon - 01:06:31 ---Press CycleStart after Tool Change
Mon - 01:06:32 ---Moving To TC Position...
Mon - 01:06:33 ---Press CycleStart after Tool Change
Mon - 01:06:56 ---Moving To TC Position...
Mon - 01:06:56 ---Auto measuring TLO...
Mon - 01:06:57 ---Probable hung open Probing DebugLog due to Mach3 bad On Error handling.
Mon - 01:06:57 ---
Mon - 01:06:59 ---Probing to TCP TP along Z-...
Mon - 01:07:14 ---TCP Touch Plate Found...
Mon - 01:07:14 ---ERROR: PTL measurement Negative!
Mon - 01:07:24 ---Auto TLO Probing ERROR
Mon - 01:07:26 ---EStop Button Pressed.
Mon - 01:07:41 ---

Thank you very much
Carlo

OK, the key message in the log is the "PTL negative" error message.

Here is a paste of some information about this from the old support forum:

When MSM Measures a tool, it cant' measure a TLO (as an "offset" is not a physical value), it has to measure the Physical Tool Length (PTL) and then calculate the TLO value (which is mode dependent) from the PTL value.

The PTL calculation that MSM does always uses machine coordinates:

PTL = Z level where the probe event or touch occurs
minus the stored Z Top of the TCP touch plate
minus the effective probe radius.

At each PTL measurement, MSM sanity checks the result - and it faults if the PTL < 0 - as clearly a tool can not really have a negative physical length.

So when this happens, the question becomes what could cause it?

Here are some things to check:

1) Are you measuring the probe tool's PTL? if so, check the tool table... is the diameter of the probe tool tip set correctly? Since a probe tool has a spherical end, the diameter is also the tip radius value. an extreme example for illustration a probe tip value of 10" will result in a bad negative PTL value when the Tip radius amount is subtracted out....

non-probe tools use a forced radius value = 0 in the calculation as a cylindrical cutting tool is treated as a 0 radius spherical end.

1a) is the probe tool a real probe tool? I.e. for this discussion, it has a spherical tip?
(There was one fellow that tried to use a piece of bar stock as the probe tool and that violates the assumptions MSM makes about the "probe tool" - to MSM all probe tools have a spherical tip.)


2) has the Z location of the TCP TP moved physically?
If the stored value for the TCP MCz is not the actual physical Z value of the top of the plate, there will be an error and it could result in the PTL negative test tripping.

3) Has the Z home switches moved or become non-repeatable?
The Z home switch anchors the machine coordinate grid in physical space. If the home switch is flaky, and not triggering at the same spot each time the machine is homed, this will show up as variation in the PTL value (just as if the TCP TP were moving up and down a little bit, or as if the stored TCP TP MCz was altering by a little bit each time the machine is homed).

If these don't point you to the issue, I can tell you how to get a debug log from MSM which will give us a trace of the exact sequence of actions during the measurement - then we can evaluate the specific numbers in the calculation when you do the measurement.

Read more: http://calypsoventures.proboards.com/in ... z2PA87wIbf

Dave

Thank you Dave!