Do you trust probing for every setup?

[KingdomTears]

I was tweaking my setup the other night and realized I still fall back on manual offsets way more than I expected. I keep hearing everyone say probing is the way to go now, but I’m not sure if most people actually rely on it for every job or if some of you still mix in manual methods like I do. So what’s the real day to day look like for you all? Are you fully trusting your probing routines or do you still double check and set things by hand? I’m wondering if I should just commit to probing more often or if the old manual habits are still worth keeping around.

 

[Alan]

Probing has gotten a lot better on modern machines, but many shops still mix it with manual checks. A probe is great for consistency, although it can hide small mistakes if the setup is not solid. Do you run a verification pass after your probe routines, or are you mostly comparing it to what you used to do by hand?

 

[Tom S_]

Are you fully trusting your probing routines or do you still double check and set things by hand?

it totally depends on the feature's tolerance. for features under ±0.0005", I'm still using a dial test indicator to pick up my X/Y centers for absolute assurance.
for everything else, especially for quick tool length setting, I am 100% committed to the probe. it's way faster and eliminates human error on the easy stuff

 

[Kahran_Ramsus]

Probing is solid, but I don’t let it run blind. I’ve seen it misread on a dirty tool or a chip that shouldn’t be there. So I run the routine, then do a quick manual sanity check. Takes an extra minute but saves me scrapping a part and explaining to my accountant wife why aluminum is suddenly more “expensive.”