mini plan help

[[Mi...]]

There are a number of parts we make where I work that have two operations: turn and drill. I've always made the base alignment similar for these: Spacial rotation and Z-origin are a turned face, Planar rotation is one of the drilled holes, and X- and Y-origins are the turned ID.

Periodically, they will bring in a part with just the turn operation completed - no drilled holes - to check concentricity. I've set up some programs to use a mini-plan that just checks the turned features, but it doesn't quite behave how I want. What I've done is leave the Base Alignment under-defined (with no planar rotation), then create an additional alignment to define the planar rotation. The mini-plan runs off the incomplete base alignment, and the drilled features are defined with respect to the secondary alignment.

The problem is, when I run the completed part, the operator is prompted to probe the first 2 (turned) features manually, then the machine probes them to measure the base alignment, then the operator is prompted to probe the third (drilled) feature to complete the secondary alignment. Is there a way to have all the manual measurement done up front instead?

[[Ow...]]

Being in the secondary alignment, I would think it would just measure the hole for the planar automatically to where it's supposed to be, unless you have the feature (used for planar) set to measure manually in the CNC/Man mode.
The assumption I'm making is that because the planar wasn't applied in the base alignment that it thinks it has to be probed manually to fulfill it???? IDK.

Thinking quickly about it........Hmmmm
You might try just taking a point on top of the part that is close to the hole, inline with the same axes and use it for planar. Then use the hole in the secondary alignments planar, which should include nothing but that hole.
If the hole is small with little probe clearance, you'd have to make sure that point was taken as close to the axis as possible.
Maybe somebody else will have a better idea.

[[Mi...]]

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I do have it set to manual mode. Thinking about it, though, I suppose I could just have it check automatically, as long as the operators are careful to align the part close enough by hand before running it (they usually are). If I do that, it would be good to loop the secondary alignment to refine the rotation... the only problem being that I've heard of doing loops but never touched them myself. Would this work?

[[No...]]

If you want an element to be measured earlier, you can add a 'null' formula to another element to build a dependency.

Say you have a point and two circles and the normal order of measurement would be
1 - Circle1
2 - Point1
3 - Circle2

But you want:
1 - Circle1
2 - Circle2
3 - Point1

Then you could insert a formula in Point1, referring to Circle2, but nullifying the result.
If the X nominal of Point1 would be 1.2345 you could replace it with the formula

0*getActual("Circle2")+1.2345

So you would still have X = 1.2345, but also a reference to Circle2, forcing Calypso to measure it first.

[[Mi...]]

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I only want the planar rotation feature to be measured earlier if I'm running the full program, i.e., checking a completed part. If I want to run just the turn operation mini-plan, I'm fine running the base alignment under-defined with just two features. In this case, if I use the nullification method to call a third feature, it would always call that feature, even is it doesn't physically exist on the part.

[[Jo...]]

Are you sure that no feature in mini plan uses the secondary alignment ?

[[Mi...]]

The mini plan runs fine.

The problem is if I define a mini plan as described, then running the full plan is more tedious; that's when the operator has to measure two features, wait for the machine to remeasure them, then measure the third. When the mini plan is run, the operator just measures two features and the rest runs automatically.

[[Jo...]]

No guarantee it will always run, but you can safely use bore missing strategy and combine with own geometry feature. At least it won't crash.