(This item pertains to the Measure Probe dialog box. On the Probe Utilities dialog box, accessible through Insert | Hardware Definition | Probe, click on the Measure button.)
When you have an indexable wrist on the CMM, PC-DMIS allows the Calibrate the Unit and Home the Unit options in the Type of Operation area of the Measure Probe dialog box.
Measure Probe dialog box showing Calibrate the unit and Home the unit
This wrist calibration is only done with a single stylus, not star probes. After PC-DMIS completes this calibration, you can use any angular position of the wrist in new probe files by calibrating a minimum of one probe angle. For additional information, see "Calibrate the Unit" under the "Type of Operation area" topic. See the "Calibrating Probe Tips" topic in the PC-DMIS CMM documentation for general information about calibrating probes.
The Calibrate the Unit option calibrates the wrist. It only works with single-arm configurations. It measures several angles on a sphere to determine the internal distances within the wrist itself. Once this information is calculated, PC-DMIS uses it to accurately predict the tip position at any A, B angle pair. This allows you to use any A, B angle in your measurement routine without calibrating each individual position.
Be sure you type your desired measurement values in the Measure Probe dialog box for the sphere measurement, and select the qualification tool before you measure with the Calibrate the Unit option selected. From the Measure Probe dialog box, you can set the number of hits, the probe prehit and retract distances, and various speeds used in the measurement process. For more information on the Measure Probe dialog box's options, see "Measure" in the "Defining Hardware" chapter.
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