Creating a Pallet Playlist

Creating and Configuring a Pallet Playlist

Similar to a playlist for music files, a playlist in Inspect is a collection of measurement routines that "play" (or execute) one after another.

With a pallet playlist, you can set up a grid of parts for measurement. During execution, in each cell of the pallet grid, the software executes a single routine. You can choose which routine each cell executes when you begin the execution.

To begin, create a playlist as usual and give it a name. If your playlist has more than one part, PC-DMIS expects to find those parts in each cell on the pallet.
From the playlist dialog box, in the Playlist Type list, choose Pallet to show the Pallet Layout tab. The remaining steps on this procedure use the Pallet Layout tab.
Define the number of cells in pallet's grid by defining the number of rows and columns:

Use the buttons on the right (or type in the box) to define the number of rows.
Use the buttons on the bottom (or type in the box) to define the number of columns.

Define the part offsets for the axes. By default, the axes are X (across the grid's bottom) and Y (along the grid's side). The axes appear red until you define the offsets:

Hover your mouse pointer over the red X axis, and click the Part Offsets. Type the part offset in X to the next part's origin, and press Enter.
Hover your mouse pointer over the red Y axis, and click the Part Offsets. Type the part offset in Y to the next part's origin, and press Enter.

When you type a non-zero value for the axes, the red color goes away.

Set the start position (or origin):

Hover your mouse pointer over one of the four corner cells that you want to be the start position. A large white dot appears.
Click on the large white dot to set that cell as the start position. You need to do this even if you want to have the execution skip that corner cell.
A number one, surrounded by a circle, indicates the first cell. This is the start position:
Inspect re-numbers the other cells.
During execution, the probe goes first to the start position at cell number 1, it then moves to cell number 2, and then to cell number 3, and so on.

Set the direction:

Hover your mouse pointer over the corner cell that you chose as the start position.
Click the white dot to change the direction that the probe follows during execution.
The large white arrow and the thick blue lines and chevron arrows all update to indicate the new direction the probe follows to measure the parts.

Turn off cells that you do not want to measure:

If you want the execution to skip any cells, click on the blue background on that cell to turn that cell off.
A cell without a blue background is off. You can click a background again to turn that cell back on and show the blue background.
During execution, the probe moves above any skipped cells, but it won't stop and measure within those cells.

Ensure you have a working alignment for your grid that matches your start position. You can do this in one of these ways:

Option 1 - Perhaps the easiest way is to have four external pre-defined alignment files (.aln), one for each corner position. Then, whenever you change start positions, you can select the alignment file for that start position.

From the gear button ( Pallet Layout Settings ) near cell 1, choose Using Pallet Alignment and load your alignment file.

To create an external alignment, measure the part once in the PC-DMIS software at that position. Then save the routine out as an external alignment. If you need more information, see the PC-DMIS documentation on external alignments.

Also, from the gear button, define the Starting Offset values. If you have multiple parts in your playlist, additional tabs appear so that you can define offsets for each routine if needed. For more information, see the description for Starting Offset in the "Pallet Layout Settings" topic.

With Using Pallet Alignment, the pallet is aligned using a pre-existing external alignment. A start offset specifies the distance between the pallet origin and the first part's origin. Subsequent parts are shifted by the pallet size, relative to the first part. Pallet offsets are applied relative to the reference manual alignment. Please take care to orient this alignment to the pallet offset directions.

Option 2 - This option works with a single measurement routine. In your routine, create a manual alignment within the measurement routine for the part at the start position. From the gear button () near cell 1, choose Using Part Alignment. With this approach, you must always use that start position. If you do this, you do not need to choose an external alignment file.

The Run Manual Alignment on First Part check box is available if your pallet playlist only has one measurement routine. With this check box, Inspect only performs a manual alignment on the first part in the grid. If you clear this check box, it uses the existing manual alignment for each part. Be sure to manually align each part to the first cell before you run the playlist.

If you need to define additional pallet settings or actions, such as using a different alignment or offsetting the start position by a certain amount, you can use the gear button near cell 1. With the gear button, you can:

Change the pallet's axis reference
Define the alignment type (either pallet or part)
Select an alignment file (for pallet alignments)
Set a starting offset (for pallet alignments)

For information on these actions, see "Pallet Layout Settings".

Click Save to save the playlist and close the playlist dialog box.