Shelled out $380 for a new probe set, old one was costing me more

I kept chasing 0.005" tolerances on a repeat job and finally checked my Renishaw stylus, it had a hairline crack I never noticed. The $380 replacement paid for itself when the first part after the swap came out perfect, no more scrap aluminum from that run. Anyone else get burned by worn tooling that looks fine until you actually measure the damage?

2 comments

2 Comments

drew_reed621mo agoMost Upvoted

Creepy how that works. I had a similar thing with a boring bar last year, looked perfect in the holder but the insert seat had a tiny chip in it that was flexing everything just enough to mess up my finish pass. Ended up chasing the issue for two days, thought it was the coolant mix or the spindle bearings. Checked the bar with a loupe finally and sure enough there was a chunk missing right where the insert sits. New bar was like $160 and fixed everything in one cut. Now anytime I get weird random tolerance drift I check the tooling first before I touch the offsets or blame the machine settings. The little stuff always bites you when you least expect it.

wesley18129d agoMost Upvoted

Man, I hear you @drew_reed62, but idk if I'd go that far. I've had plenty of times where I swear it's the tooling, swap it out, and the issue is still there, so now I'm out the cost of a new bar and still stuck. I mean, checking the simple stuff first makes sense, but I've seen guys blame a $160 tool when it was actually a loose drawbar or a worn way cover letting coolant in. Maybe it's just my luck, but the tiny chip thing feels like a 1 in 20 chance, not the first thing I'd reach for. Don't get me wrong, I'll take a quick look with a loupe now, but I'm not about to remount everything or reset my whole process based on one story. I guess what I'm saying is, it's worth a glance, but I wouldn't dump money into new tooling until I've ruled out the obvious machine stuff first.