Went from hating probing cycles to trusting them after one bad setup in Tulsa

For the last 8 years I always skipped the probing routine on our vertical mill, figured it was just wasted time and I could bump the edge finder faster by hand. Two months ago I was setting up a job for a repeat customer and got my X zero off by 12 thou, scraped a whole run of 40 parts before I caught it. That was a $900 mistake and the customer was rightfully ticked, so I finally let the old timer down the line show me his presetter workflow. He had me run the Renishaw probe cycle for 6 fixtures in a row and honestly it took like 90 seconds each, way less than I thought. Now I use the probe for every new setup, even quick one-offs, and my scrap rate has dropped to almost nothing. Has anyone else here been skeptical of probing and then flipped after a costly blunder, or am I the last guy to come around?

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the_daniel4d ago

Wait, you went 8 years without ever probing on a vertical mill? Thats wild man. Ive been running machines for about half that time and even I know the edge finder can lie to you if the part isnt dead clean or you get a burr in the way. 12 thou off is a huge miss too, like that aint even a subtle slip, thats a full blown oops. But hey, I get it, I used to think the probe was for fancy aerospace shops only, not us regular folks. Now I run the cycle on every fixture and honestly the 90 seconds beats re-cutting 40 parts any day. Glad you finally saw the light, better late than never right?