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Update: guy on night shift said he never checks his G54 after a setup, and half my shop agreed with him
So I'm standing at the machine waiting on a warmup cycle last Thursday and Dave from nights says he hasn't touched his work offsets after a setup in 6 years. Just trusts the probe and hits cycle start. Two other guys nodded like that was normal.
My side: I zero my G54 by hand on the first part every single time. Takes me maybe 90 seconds. I've caught a drifted probe tip twice this year, once by .011 on a 316 stainless job that would have scrapped 8 parts.
Their side: probe calibrates itself, if it's off you'd see it on the first feature anyway, and 90 seconds times 20 setups a week adds up.
So where do you land? Do you trust the probe and let it ride, or touch off on part one no matter what? And if you do trust it, how often do you actually check the stylus?
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dakotawells17h ago
Honestly Dave is playing a game with house money and doesn't know it. A probe is a mechanical thing with a ruby tip and a spring inside it, it drifts, it gets chips on it, and it doesn't always throw an alarm when it's off. That .011 you caught is the whole argument right there, because a probe that self calibrates on a bad stylus reading just calibrates itself wrong and feels great about it. I run a lawn crew and I still walk my first yard before I cut, takes two minutes and saves me from mowing rocks. Ninety seconds on part one is cheap insurance and the math on eight scrapped 316 parts pays for a whole year of those 90 seconds. Trusting it for six years just means he's been lucky for six years. I'd ask those two guys when they last pulled the stylus and looked at it under a light, because my guess is never.
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