Cylinders!!

[jmgreen]

3.7mr3 Beta
I have several cylinders on a block. I go to the first one and take a plane around it, measure the cylinder and hit create. The probe goes straight to the center and down into it (the cylinders are like little tubes). I've checked and rechecked, tried several variations. the graphics look right, even the hits in the command parameters look right. Of course, when I'm looking at the graphics window (zoom in) the whole thing dies and I have to reopen PCDMIS. I've attached a pdf of the cylinder menu. Any thoughts? Seems like every time I do a cylinder there's some quirk that shows up.
PCDMIS has got to be the worst software I have used. I used MM4 for years and it was very stable, easy to edit, numbers did not change, when you wrote a program it was the same when you used it the next week or the next year. Quite frankly the only real plus I've found with PCDMIS is alignment is a lot easier and you can use graphics. These don't offset the headaches to me. Granted I've only used PCDMIS for about 2 1/2 years and don't pretend to be an expert but D*MN. I'm almost to the point of telling my company that I made a mistake recommending this and just go back to MM4.
Sorry for the rant but I'm very frustrated/p**sed off right now. I do feel alittle better to have vented.

[Peter Warcholyk]

Jim,

The first thing that I noticed in your attachement is that you have "stud" selected instead of "hole".
If you look closely at your graphics, you should notice that the direction of the hits is pointing the wrong way.

Secondly, I would also use a minumum of five hits instead of three on each row.

Hope this helps.

ZydecoPete

[Tested]

If your tring to do your sample points on the top of the cyl make your spacer a minus 2 your depth also.

[#2#]

I am a little confused. Are these cylinders you want to measure internal or external?

If indeed they are internal then changing from "stud" to "hole" should fix everything.

Ok, I went and looked. When you have "stud" checked and a height entered it will take a hit on top of the stud to check the height. That is why it goes down into the tube. It is trying to take that hit.

[jmgreen]

I am a little confused. Are these cylinders you want to measure internal or external?

If indeed they are internal then changing from "stud" to "hole" should fix everything.

Ok, I went and looked. When you have "stud" checked and a height entered it will take a hit on top of the stud to check the height. That is why it goes down into the tube. It is trying to take that hit.

These are studs sticking out of the block. Why would it want to touch the top of the stud? I initially touched the plane the stud is coming out of and gave a height. All the other times I've done this it didn't try to touch the top of the stud first. Is there something I have turned on that makes it want to do this? How do I turn it off? The studs are hollow tubes.
Thanks for the input. I'll keep trying.

[jmgreen]

Weirder and weirder. I went back and checked to see if there was anything on that could affect it, like hitting on the top as Goodluck suggested. Nothing, so I tried to run it again and it worked! Now could someone explain what the F*** is going on. I just wasted almost half a day with this and now it works and I haven't changed one thing. I had talked to tech support and they don't know why it was doing that either. sent them my program too.
I really am getting to hate this software.

[#2#]

These are studs sticking out of the block. Why would it want to touch the top of the stud? I initially touched the plane the stud is coming out of and gave a height. All the other times I've done this it didn't try to touch the top of the stud first. Is there something I have turned on that makes it want to do this? How do I turn it off? The studs are hollow tubes.
Thanks for the input. I'll keep trying.

My book says that if there is a number in the box for height it will try to touch the top of the stud at that height. I am guessing that is an option that they put in because often times when one measures a stud's location one also wants to know the height.

Just to the right of where "stud" is checked is the height box. If you delete the number it should work. Was the autofeatures window open when you touched the plane. Sometimes the values of the manual hits are entered as nominals (xyz & height?) for some reason.

[keego]

I purchased PC-Dmis ver 4.0 a couple months ago. Haven't gone to training and not really looking forward to it. I'm perfectly happy with MM4 and in fact am becoming very good with it. (Thank god I got the mm4 emulator). It's a shame it's not supported anymore. Someday I'm sure I'll be forced to learn PC-Dmis and am glad you guys are here for help.

[#2#]

My book says that if there is a number in the box...

My book by the way is the "Brown&Sharpe PC-DMIS for Windows Reference Manual 82-90112" It is probably a little outdated but...

[jmgreen]

I just tried the second stud and had the same problem, goes down the center of the tube. Tried your thought Goodluck and took off the height. It just kept measuring around the base. I put the height back in and it measured it right. Doesn't make sense to me that you leave out the height. How would it know how tall the stud is from the plane. The help? screen says if you touch the top of the stud for a plane then the height should be neg. and if around the base then positive. What's strange is it wants to go through the top and after playing with it awhile it then measures correctly.
Could cylinder auto-feature be buggy? Surely not, this stuff is tested and we pay big bucks for it. I'm sure 4.0 and 3.6 were just anomalies

[jmgreen]

My book by the way is the "Brown&Sharpe PC-DMIS for Windows Reference Manual 82-90112" It is probably a little outdated but...

I think it is. I've done many cylinders before and this is the first time I've had this happen.
You know, I'm beginning to think there is a snippet of that old code in the software and it is tripping on it for a while and then suddenly for some reason it comes to its senses and skips it and works fine. I don't see how it should try to touch the top to get the height. what if it's a tube like I have. I heard from tech suppoet and they've had similar problems in class. Back to my initial rant.

[bboyd]

I usually use auto circle with out any pre/perm hits with a stud and just measure it in 2 or more places for position and create the cylinder out of the circles

[#2#]

I just tried the second stud and had the same problem, goes down the center of the tube. Tried your thought Goodluck and took off the height. It just kept measuring around the base. I put the height back in and it measured it right. Doesn't make sense to me that you leave out the height. How would it know how tall the stud is from the plane. The help? screen says if you touch the top of the stud for a plane then the height should be neg. and if around the base then positive. What's strange is it wants to go through the top and after playing with it awhile it then measures correctly.
Could cylinder auto-feature be buggy? Surely not, this stuff is tested and we pay big bucks for it. I'm sure 4.0 and 3.6 were just anomalies

I don't know... I guess I've never fooled around with the height. I usually just put in the x and y nominals and then find z by trial and error. What version are you using?

I will try it in 3.7MR3 and see what I get.

[tking]

3.7 mr3, my experience.

XYZ are the coordinates of the intersect point of the cylinder with the surface. For a stud the depth is the distance above the surface where the first level of points will be probed, the height is where the last level of points will be probed. I do not use init or perm. Auto cylinder function works great for me

TK

[#2#]

3.7 mr3, my experience.

XYZ are the coordinates of the intersect point of the cylinder with the surface. For a stud the depth is the distance above the surface where the first level of points will be probed, the height is where the last level of points will be probed. I do not use init or perm. Auto cylinder function works great for me

TK

Ok, apparently there has been an easier way to do an auto cylinder than I have been doing. I just tried it this way and everything worked fine.