0
Warning: old school tool setting still works better than my digital probe for this one thing
I used to set all my tool offsets by jogging up to a 1-2-3 block and eyeballing it. Back in 2015 when I started at a shop in Phoenix, that was the only way. Now I have a Haimer 3D Taster and it's great for most jobs. But for some reason on our old Haas VF-2 with a rigid tap cycle, the digital probe gives me bad Z depths on thread mills. I went back to the 1-2-3 block last week and got perfect parts first try. Has anyone else found that sometimes the old manual methods beat the fancy tools?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
bailey.jennifer2d ago
Huh, that's interesting... I always figured digital was just better across the board, but maybe I need to give the old block another try.
5
ryan7932d ago
Grab an old mechanical or even a decent digital from 10 years back and compare it to a brand new cheap digital. The older stuff was built different. Had a buddy who worked at a tool repair shop for years, he'd tell me all the time about how the newer digital calipers have thinner circuit boards and cheaper sensor strips that drift way more than people realize. A quality analog dial caliper doesn't have any of those electronics to go bad, just gears and a rack. And here's the kicker nobody talks about - the indicator needle on a dial caliper can show you a measurement trend way faster than a digital display can. You can watch the needle sweep and see exactly where your part is getting tight or loose in a cut without having to stare at little numbers jumping around.
3