Alignment Changing After Re-opening Program

[[Tr...]]

I've seen a couple of posts about this recently but they didn't quite relate to the issue I'm having. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong here but I will try to explain the best I can.

I wrote and ran this program yesterday with no issues. I came in this morning, fired up the CMM and tried to run the same program after my qualification. Using my alignment from yesterday, it ran the base alignment without issue then made an odd movement on the first feature after all base alignment features, which would have caused a crash. I reset the program and tried to do a manual alignment and got an error message (attached picture as Error Message) stating it's trying to use -Z as my default clearance plane, among other things.

Not sure what is happening so I try a couple of things. First I go into my alignment and try re-selecting the same features for alignment and get a Unable to Calculate Alignment error message (Base Alignment picture attachment). Then I try just manually touching off my Datum B plane on the front face of the part and it shows my point 180 degrees from where they should be (Feature flipped on Z attachment).

Any advice on what I may be doing or what may be going on here would be appreciated. I though maybe the part was too close to the table so I moved the part higher up and still the same issues. Thanks in advance!

Feature flipped on Z.jpgBase Alignment.jpgError Message.jpg

[[Th...]]

Your 'Plane1' feature looks to be set to the -Z clearance group. Try changing it to +Z, or -Y depending on how you actually want the CMM to approach that plane.

[[Da...]]

Only thing I see is that your spatial is a circle. That won't work. you need a plane or a 3d feature to align spatial.

[[Tr...]]

Thank you for your responses. I tried adjusting my Spatial Rotation to using the Datum "B" plane instead of the Datum "A" circle and I'm still getting the error message. Doesn't make much sense anyway since I ran this program on four parts with zero issues yesterday. The only thing that has changed is I shut down the machine yesterday and restarted it this morning.

Also, Plane1 was a manually probed feature from this morning after these issues popped up so it is just defaulting to the -Z plane because it is trying to align the part 180 degrees from the way I want it and am manually touching the points.

[[Da...]]

Travis, show us a snip of drawing where datums are. Hide dimensions of course.
Is the "2d Line1" theoretical and using recall of points?

[[Th...]]

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Adding on to this, based on the orientation of the features, does a circle make sense as a Z origin constraint? It doesn't look like it would to me.

[[Tr...]]

Datum B is the front face plane and Datum A is the single large parallel circle behind that. They are labeled that on the drawing, but on this op they are irrelevant to the results I'm trying to get. I just named them here to keep them straight in my head. All I am trying to do is measure a concentricity on all of the perpendicular circles to themselves. The actual "datums" on this op are the small circles directly below the slightly larger circles.

Also yes, the 2d line is theoretical recall of feature points using the front two larger perpendicular circles.

[[Tr...]]

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And what would you use for your Z origin here? I have written numerous programs using this method and have never had any issues until today. I want to have my Z origin located at the axial center-line of my part so, considering I am laying the part down parallel to the table, I would need a feature in axial center of the part to align there right?

[[Ne...]]

Travis,

I would not use a 2-D line if I am recalling points. I would use a 3-D line instead. Try recalling the points
into a 3 -d line and see if that works.

Neil

[[Tr...]]

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Thanks Neil! That fixed it! I knew better than that, I really don't know why I had a 2D line instead of 3D. DOH! 🙄 It is still interesting that it ran without issue yesterday and only started with the errors after a restart of the machine. Thanks again for all of your help!

[[Th...]]

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Based on the trihedron showing in your pictures, it didn't look to me like a 2D circle would be able to constrain movement in that direction. Either I'm wrong about that, or Calypso wasn't showing the proper orientation due to the use of a 2D line as your rotation alignment feature. Not that it's relevant now, since you've already solved it, but that was my reasoning.

[[Ri...]]

Is this some sort of shaft? If so, you need to be using either a Cylinder or at least a 3d Line created from two/three circles encompassing the length of the part as your Spatial.

If Calypso isn't able to fully constrain a part within the Base Alignment, it will just default to the Machine Axis Coordinates.