Did you know that Strong Edge can "search" for your part? You may know that you can set a search direction for the Strong Edge. Most often this is used when you have two edges within the search window and you want to specify which edge to measure.
But the directional search on the strong edge can also "search" for your part. It works this way:
- If the Strong Edge tool does not find an edge within the search window, it will move the stage over (in the search direction) and search again.
- It will do this a set number of times until it finds the part or fails.
By default, this very useful feature may be turned off. To turn it on, do the following:
- Put your Enable Disk in the floppy drive
- Click on System -> Configuration -> Editor
- Select the Strong Edge section.
- Specify a percentage number for Edge_Search_Ahead (This is a percentage of the search area the stage will move. I recommend a number between 80 and 100)
- Specify a number of Edge_Search_Retries (I recommend a value from 3 to 5, but can be as high as 10)
- Click Save Section, then Close
Now test it out:
Write a 1 step program: Focus the optics on the left edge of the training part using backlight only. Take the Strong Edge tool, and click on the edge and set a search direction to the right (from light to dark in this case). Enter on the joystick, then click OK to save the step. Now, carefully move the part to the right, so that the edge is now outside of the search window box. Run the program. The strong edge finder fails, moves over, fails, moves over, etc. until it finds the part.
Pretty cool, eh?
