The parts I'm inspecting have indents from chuck jaws or from poor handling. Also weld splatter on the machined surfaces. When I probe on a defect it throws the feature out of whack. Right now I am just clicking on every feature in the command window to see its error in the the status window. Is there a way to report it? Thanks guys
To report that with the feature you can add a Form output to the Location reporting (Insert - Dimension - Location). For circles and cylinders it reports the roundness, for planes - flatness, for lines - straightness.
On the report, for this cylinder, it lables it as RN for roundness. It is the same value from the status window.
If i were checking this part, and I couldnt improve it, then i would actively avoid all the surface imperfections, report all dimensions as best i could, then report the surface imperfections separately.
when you say report the surface imperfections separately - do you mean writing out observations or measuring the imperfections with the cmm? maybe something like dents on Datum B with depth of .004 and weld splatter on flange face?
i mean take pictures of the areas in question. measure size of imperfections with calipers, and report them as deviation from overall surface finish requirement.
if the tolerance of the diameter is tight, like say less than +/-.010 then i might take a scan and report roundness. but given the build quality of this thing i'm not sure i'd spend too much time on this.
If you are measuring something pretty sloppy, you could turn on the auto form dimensions via the Setup Options(F5), then there is a place to turn on form for all features using a button on the Dimension tab.
If this were my life, and I could create the time, I might do something like measure the thing 5 times, each measurement starting clocked 18 degrees apart, look at the form error and report the feature with the lowest form error for position/size and report the worst form error as form error (simplest).
Or, write code to send all the point data to, points with an error to form 10% beyond the error of the average error to true form, and I would put them in a "no" list, then make features from all the points in the "yes" list (much more complex coding).
This would require that I spend enough time manually checking the weld splatter to prove the CMM should be ignored that it would justify the extra CMM time to over-inspect the part AND my time programming all that crap.
You can look at the code section of this forum to get some ideas on scripts and how to use them, if you can justify the time investment.
