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Vent: That time I crashed a spindle because I trusted the tool probe too much
This was back in June at my old shop in Phoenix. We had a Haas VF-2 and I was running a production part, about 80 pieces. Did my tool touch-off like normal, hit cycle start, and about 30 seconds into the first cut I heard this grinding noise. Spindle plowed right into the fixture. Turns out the ceramic stylus on the probe had a hairline crack from someone bumping it the day before. It wasn't seating right, so the offsets were all off by like 0.15 inches. Boss wasn't mad but I felt dumb. I started doing a quick manual jog-up check after every tool change now, just a tap near the stock before letting it rip. Any of you guys ever get burned by a bad probe reading?
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dianaanderson7d ago
Oh man that hurts just reading it. That grinding noise is something you never forget, like a car crash in slow motion. A cracked ceramic stylus is just one of those sneaky things that looks fine until it screws your whole day up. I had a similar screw up on a Okuma mill where the probe tip was just slightly bent from a crash the week before and I didn't catch it. Wound up making a pile of scrap parts that looked perfect on the machine but measured all wrong after. Manual jog up is a must now, feels like a waste of time until it saves your ass again.
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lucasschmidt7d ago
Honestly I used to skip that step but after seeing a buddy scrap a whole batch I'll never do that again.
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