Quick Question About Alignments

[vizionary357]

When performing alignments for parts, I first align to the tooling balls as a reference and then to the part datums before I begin measuring. I learned that here . My question is this: When creating that second alignment to the datums, should I recall A1 (the tooling ball alignment) or should I recall startup? Does it make a difference?

[Darrollh]

You can rename it as you see fit. I usually call my manual alignment, MAN_ALIGN and my DCC alignment DCC_ALIGN.

[vizionary357]

You can rename it as you see fit. I usually call my manual alignment, MAN_ALIGN and my DCC alignment DCC_ALIGN.

I'm not concerned with naming the alignments, I'm wondering about which alignment to recall when performing multiple alignments in the beginning of the measuring routine. For instance, when you do your DCC_ALIGN do you recall MAN_ALIGN or do you recall STARTUP or does it not really matter.

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

recall the tooling ball alignment

[vizionary357]

recall the tooling ball alignment

Perfect. Thank you Sir!

[Griffin]

I think it is important to explain. Alignments inherit the properties of the recalled alignment. If you completely define the alignment with a 3-2-1 for example, it wont affect the end result to recall the startup or the tooling ball since you "overwrite" everything. If you leave something out like rotation, it will be as if rotation from the previous alignment was first in the new alignment (order matters here). However, it is proper to recall your tooling ball alignment.