Prober appears to loose point of reference after a few components

Started by mpallant, February 11, 2010, 05:55:49 AM

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mpallant

Under Workstation 3.x, we could set alignment points anywhere without concern of how close the the home position they were.

With Workstation 4.1, we cannot perform a camera offset any closer than 7 inches from the right side of the prober, but we learned that the new software acts differently in order to support other models of the prober.

However, after importing a CAD file and creating alignment points and net lists, the prober correctly identifies and sets the alignment points and continues on its way, moving from pad to pad as intended, but after just a few tests, the prober moves outside the boundaries of the board and starts pecking at the air.

It is almost as if it believes that the home position is somewhere else besides the true home.  It is quite baffling as our 3.x software still works just fine. 

Has anyone else experienced this?


admin

Hi,
Since you have tests that work in version 3, try converting one of your v.3 tests in version 4 (File/Convert). If the Converted test works okay then there is some issue with the test created in version 4.

Regarding the prober moving off the board to probe, see what component or net it is trying to probe then stop it and go into Teach mode for the component or net. See if it moves to the correct position. If not then there is an issue with the imported XY position.

One odd thing about Camera Offset is that it remembers the location where you last performed it. Reset only clears the Offset XY settings but not where Offset was last done. You need to edit (meaning delete) the Offset settings in the Registry to fully reset the "last performed" location.
The most important troubleshooting tool is your eyes.

mpallant

There were two issues occurring at the same time.  Primarily, the prober hardware had a fault that caused the system to lose its point of reference.  Basically there was a communication fault that, from what I understood, was not an issue with the old software as the prober movement was slower and more software delays were in place.  The optimized 4.1 software brought the hardware fault out and into the open and we did have it replaced.

The second issue revolved around CAD orientation where one of the CAD files we imported did not like to be rearranged (rotated) and ultimately was decided that the file was corrupt.  However, the hardware issue was why a converted test from WS 3.x would go awry.

-MP