Probes need to be calibrated before you can use them to measure the part. Calibration tells the software the position of the probe tip in 3-D space. Probe calibration involves the probe tip taking touches on a measurement sphere, called a "calibration tool". You should perform a probe calibration whenever your probing hardware changes, such as installing a new probe tip or when a calibrated probe grows stale.
This procedure is for calibrating probes with a PC-DMIS application add-on:
Connect the probe hardware that you want to calibrate (such as probe body, extension, and tip) to your CMM.
Attach your calibration tool to the CMM base plate.
Run Inspect.
In Inspect, access the Home screen. Then from the left sidebar, click Settings.
On the Settings screen, locate your PC-DMIS version (for example, PC-DMIS 2020 R2).
Under that version, click Probe Calibrate to show an Open dialog box. (If this button is unavailable for selection, an administrator needs to enable this setting.)
From the Open dialog box, choose the probe file that matches the probe you want to calibrate.
Click Open to show the PC-DMIS Probe Utilities dialog box with that probe.
Click Measure to show the PC-DMIS Measure Probe dialog box.
From List of available tools, choose the calibration tool you'll use.
Fill out other options in the Measure Probe dialog box as needed, and click Measure to start the calibration.
Follow any on-screen instructions or prompts to calibrate the probe.
If you need help with either the Probe Utilities or the Measure Probe dialog box, you can press F1 on these dialog boxes to open the PC-DMIS Help file. It may take a few seconds to open. Once the Help opens, on the Search tab, type "Calibrating Probe Tips" (include the quotes). Then press Enter to locate topics on calibrating probes in PC-DMIS.