This is a technique I use while writing long programs when can have sometimes up to 30 different alignments or more to go through while writing/dimensioning a part. Often at our facility we can move a part from prototype to Rev. D within a year and this makes it a little easier to move different alignments in and out of your programs without altering alignments below or losing recall alignments. Some might already be doing this, but I thought it could be useful to some of the noobs as well.
DCC Align: Get your program into one of the more major alignments, one that is used for the majority of your print call-outs.
Premise: You will probably never need to delete or alter your main alignment. This should be the rock of your program.
This is my preference, I use this alignment for the execution of all of my features, if I do move into several alignments, I always recall the first major DCC alignment before I construct the new alignment. This way, if you need to alter or delete an alignment for some reason, there will be a recall alignment above and below the one you remove, and your theoretical numbers for features below the deleted alignment shouldn’t change.
Some may prefer to construct all of there alignments while executing the features this way the feature will have the proper nominal dimensions.
I use this same technique for dimensioning.
• Recall/Align/MajorDCC
• Insert new needed alignment per print requirement
• Insert Dimension
• Recall/ Align/MajorDCC
• Insert new needed alignment per print requirement
• Insert Dimension
• Recall/Align/MajorDCC
I have used this with great success, and I wish I had this tip when I first started programming, unfortunately I had to learn this myself, but I am a better programmer for it.
GOOD LUCK!!
