HxGN SFx Management Release 6.1

SFx Asset Management 6.1 is an upgraded version that mainly focuses on metrology device support. It includes support for a new tracker model, AT500 and its accessories, SFx Desktop upgrade, and generic assets. The updated features are as follows:

  • Support for a New Tracker Model
  • SFx Desktop Upgrades
  • Generic Assets
  • Additional Improvements

Support for a new tracker model

A new type of portable measuring machine, Laser Tracker AT500, and its accessories are fully supported by SFx Asset Management:

  • Full functionality support
    This new tracker is now fully supported by SFx Asset Management. Therefore, you can get the full functionalities just like other laser trackers (AT9x0 and ATS600) compatible with SFx Asset Management already.

  • New probe
    Laser Tracker AT500 only supports the B-ProbePlus, a new type of probe for portable measuring equipment. See Asset Probes for Laser Trackers (AT500) for details.

  • Unique power management
    Laser Tracker AT500 has two built-in internal batteries compared to other laser tracker systems (AT9x0 and ATS600). Therefore, it has a unique set of power level indications and calculations. See Power Supply Chart for a Laser Tracker AT500 for details.

SFx desktop upgrades

SFx Desktop provides compatible support for the new tracker model, AT500. You can onboard a Laser Tracker AT500 to SFx Asset Management by following the existing laser tracker onboarding process using the latest version of the SFx Desktop.

  • Improvements to Pulse Sensors Dashboard:
    • SFx Desktop does not display internal axial temperature sensors in the Pulse Sensors Dashboard when a CMM is connected and no sensor data is transmitted.
    • In addition, only activated Pulse sensors are displayed in the Pulse Sensors Dashboard by default, and sensors configured as disabled in the Pulse Sensors Settings will be hidden.
    • A Filter icon is added to the Pulse Sensors Dashboard. Now you can filter Pulse sensors with two new filters: Activity and Status.
  • The Pulse PC-DMIS Monitor application has been integrated into SFx Desktop and works as an alternative service for PC-DMIS EdgeClient Interface. This service starts only when a CMM is onboarded.
  • Added the Refresh function to the MTConnect Agents adding screen. You can now get the up-to-date machine list by refreshing an existing agent, and easily add a new machine from the existing agent.
  • Untied the blinding relationship between wireless Pulse sensors and CMMs so that wireless Pulse sensors can be interchangeable among different CMMs. Now you can manually link a wireless Pulse sensor module to a CMM through the new field Asset to link on the Edit Wireless Sensor screen.
  • SFx Desktop now captures complete program data from the metrology software with no need to restart the metrology software when the metrology software is running a program before SFx Desktop is started.
  • Performance Improvements:
    • SFx Desktop starts faster than before. Instead of loading all services at startup, now it only loads services when needed and runs devices in the background.
    • The following error should no longer appear in SFx Desktop: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object".

Generic assets

You can now onboard a portable measuring instrument or a device that is not currently supported by SFx Asset Management as a Generic Asset from the Asset Settings page. See Adding Generic Assets for details.

A Generic Asset allows for remote asset positioning, route history tracking, geofence creation and event notifications, and basic asset management after linking to a GPS Tag. See Browsing a Generic Asset in Detail for details.

Especially, you can manually set up the Recommended Certification Date for a generic asset as needed.

In addition, a new asset type, Generic Asset, is added to the asset filters in the Asset Dashboard. It can help you quickly filter out all generic assets.

Additional improvements

  • Monthly Certification and Subscription Summary Email Notification

    Consolidated certification and subscription email notifications of all assets in an organization into a single one. On the last day of every month, Account Administrators can receive a summary email notification which includes a list of assets, the certification or subscription of which will expire in 90 days, along with necessary field information for each one.

    Now you will no longer receive hundreds of email notifications every day. Instead, only one email per month will be delivered to Account Administrators on the last day of every month.

  • Refinements to GPS Information
    • Optimized the GPS Location info in asset event logs. Now Event Info dialog displays the geo-location when the event happens. This helps you obtain the location changes of an asset by checking the sequence of asset event logs.
    • When the last reported GPS location of an asset is older than 2 hours ago, a warning icon is appended both in the Asset Detail View and GPS Geo-location dialog. This icon with a descriptive tooltip indicates that the current GPS data is not up-to-date.

      Additionally, the GPS Tag Last Update time is also displayed in the GPS Geo-location dialog.

  • Added a new filter, Plant to the Program Dashboard. You can now filter programs by plant name to display programs that belong to your specified plant.
  • Added two new columns, GPS Location, and GPS Serial Number, to the CSV export file of assets.
  • Added the Last Performed Check status icon to the Asset Detail View for laser trackers.