To Clearance Distance or to not Clearance Distance

[[Te...]]

To Clearance Distance or to not Clearance Distance that is the question.

For years I have always set my clearance distance to 0 and only added it when needed, because I have had to many students crash their CMM because they forgot that they needed to change the clearance distance and the retract distance when measuring tight lines and planes where clearance distance and retract are in the same direction. I thought it would be easier to remember when to use it, rather than remembering when not to use it or when to adjust it.

Three good uses of Clearance Distance are:

1 - Safely measuring and navigating non-orthogonal features (angled holes or features)

2 - Controlling speed of the Stylus System into small Circles, Cones or Cylinders

3 - Controlling speed after an Automatic Stylus System change, so the first feature in the program should have a Clearance Distance, especially if using the optional speed control in the Optional Template Program (page 22), and the first feature after a Stylus System change should have a Clearance Distance if possible. (I usually set my speed to 50% in my template because most of the parts I measure are less than 8 inches)

But now I am rethinking it, the last couple of companies I have trained measured a lot of really small diameters and setting the clearance distance not to 0.00 makes perfect sense them. I think 10 is probably to big as a default but 5 seems more reasonable.

I could recommend creating another template program for parts that have a lot of small diameters with a clearance distance set at something other than 0.00, which will work, I do the same thing for my save and load defaults / strategies, have a small holes set up with 400° Angle Range instead of 380°.

What are my fellow programmer's opinion should I change my ways?

[[Ma...]]

Well it all depends on geometry of part.

I disable clearence distance for cylinders if they are not in Z axis ( because something is above cylinder ).
Automaticaly for curves and circles.

Don't think there is possibility of template because of variety of parts.

[[Ro...]]

Clearance distance is 0.000 by default.

[[Ri...]]

You don't need clearance distance unless the feature isn't normal to the surface.

I pretty much always work in zero clearance distance.

Let the retract distance do the work for you.

[[To...]]

Clearance Distance set to 0

[[To...]]

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In the past, I have seen Calypso automatically change the clearance distance from 10 to zero on cylinders that are perpendicular to Z. Not always, though. But since I have been changing default to zero, I don't know if it is still doing it.

[[Lo...]]

Clearance is set to 0, adjust depending on the Stylus diameter or how I must approach a feature. It allows me to slow down the approach and have more control. 99% of the time I leave it set to 0.

[[SH...]]

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Page 22, which book?

[[Te...]]

My RGL training guide that I give to students when they come to class.