I heard a guy at my shop say probing is a waste of time and I had to walk away

So I'm in the break room last Tuesday and this new guy starts going off about how probing setups are just fancy toys for people who cant read a dial indicator. He said he's been running mills for 12 years and never needed one. Look I get it, old school methods work fine for basic work. But I run a lot of one-off parts for a medical device shop here in Phoenix and probing saves me like 10 minutes per setup minimum. Not to mention it catches my fixturing drift before I take a cut. I respect knowing the manual way but why wouldn't you use a tool that makes you faster and more accurate? Anyone else deal with old timers who think probing is cheating?

2 comments

2 Comments

briancampbell9d ago

Cracked up reading this because Ive been that guy. First time I used a probe on a friends machine I hit the wrong button and sent the spindle straight into the table. Thought I broke everything. But once I figured it out I felt like an idiot for avoiding them for so long. Probing isnt cheating any more than using calipers instead of a ruler. Faster and more accurate wins every time in my book.

king.kevin9d ago

Yeah "faster and more accurate wins every time" really clicked for me. I used to think probes were overkill but honestly I was just being stubborn about learning something new. Now I feel dumb for wasting all that time with edge finders.

-1