SERIOUS PROBLEMS

[1hander]

im not sure why this has started happening... i ended up trashing the last control pc because i thought that was the problem... i built a new pc with absolutely nothing other than win XP... got it all running last night... today io remeasured all tools..

i did a fresh install of MSM on the control PC ... but i did reuse my old profile..im not sure if thats the problem... the probing was woking fine until i loaded the cam file...then i probed the workpiece..everything went fine...then loaded the facemill and it started to cut about 3 inches above the stock... same thing it was doing before,,

then i restarted the pc and tried to reprobe the stock and i keep getting
STEP OFF WIDTH <=EFFPROBERADIUS + MINPROBEDISTANCE, OP CANCELED

the offsets for the tool are correct in the tool table.. im not sure what the heck is going on...

[1hander]

i decide to give it another try...
referenced all axis...
went to probe the stock
and it smashed another stylus..
i dont understand whats happening.

[1hander]

another problem which was happening last time as well..for some reason
my number 7 tool...the facemill... the offset is changing by itself... i did not change it..
when i remeasured all of the tool...the offset was correct...the ptl has not changed but the offset went from -2.273 to .080 ...
so i decided well i will just remeasure the damn thing right now....
WRONG
when i try to measure tool...is feeds down at about 2ipm then stops because it cant find a surface...

[1hander]

i just deleted all of msm...and did a new install...

before i did that... i remeasured the face mill to get the offset correct...once i check it was correct, i saved the tool table.. to my desktop

after i reinstalled msm...
i changed the view to msm screen
then loaded t he tool table from my desk top.
loaded my CAM file..
tried to run it but again t7 was cutting air
the first thing i checked was the offset of the t7 and it had again been changed this time to -.090 ..
so again i decided to remeasure the tool
but it would only creep along Z- at about 2ipm..which would take a ridiculous amount of time

[1hander]

ok Dave

i was able to reproduce the error only one time... then for some reason everything started working perfectly again... the only thing i didnt do was reload the cam
heres what i did.

normally of i do not have T1 MT.probe,, (i get ahead of myself sometimes)...mounted in the software and i try to do the probing routine , i get a probe not mounted error message, then i just hit the reset probe thing..mount the probe and away i go..with no problems

but the last few times that it has been acting crazy....if i tried to probe the stock with .. say T2 mounyed in the software... i would get that long error message i posted up top instead of the normal probe not mounted error message

i got the long effective probe diameter bla bla message... then i looked up at the tool info window..which had t7 up.
i noticed the offset dro box had gone to 0.0001 so i clicked the + to go to T8 and i also had the offset dro set to 0.0001
i went back to t7 and i saw the offset dro was highlighted... when i clicked on it to unhighlight it...it went back to the original correct offset...

tommorow i will reset up the probe and try again to see what happens

so what i think was happening...is that this glitch or whatever it is... was changing the offset..then when i killed the app to start over..i would click yes to the save tool table option which would save the wrong values...then when i would restart mach3 ...it had the wrong values which i told it to save before it closed out completely..

but like i said... now when i try to probe with the wrong tool... i just get the normal probe tool not mounted...i reset ... and i goes well after that..
before i was getting that long message..then it would go crazy..

[DaveCVI]

Hi,
In general the error messages in MSM are informative - they tell you what problem MSM is seeing.

when you see:
STEP OFF WIDTH <=EFFPROBERADIUS + MINPROBEDISTANCE, OP CANCELED

check the values that the error message is giving -
Step off width: this value is set in the probing parameters page. It was probably zero.
Eff(ective) probe radius: check the diameter value for the probe tool that is in the tool table.

Min probe distance is a small constant - in the range of 0.010 inches (from memory)

Dave

[1hander]

i definitely thought the same thing ...

what was happening was that for some reason .. when i tried to do a probe and did not have the probe tool mounted...
thats when when i would get that long error message...
for some reason when i tried to measure without the probe tool mounted the values in the tool table would change to mostly zeros ...

for whatever reason... it has decided to now react correctly when i try to probe with some tool other than the probe.
which is to give the message....
PROBE TOOL NOT MOUNTED
then i just hit the probe op reset
and away i go...

i swore i was going crazy until i saw with my own eyes the values in the tool table were being changed to values other than what it was supposed to be...
and that it was doing that weird dro box highlighted thing
somethings was very wrong...then it fized itself somehow because i did nothing but shut it down..walk away and come back a short time later

anywho.. i deleted everything last night and reinstalled.. using all of the windows optimizations from the website the same away i did before..
again everything seems to be working correctly..