Auto Features on a live Part

[Darrollh]

Good afternoon,
i want to know how to do auto Features on a live part. I've always programmed from CAD and whenever I programmed an actual part, I used measured features .I know I'm backwards but that's how I learned. Thank you in advance!

[Don Ruggieri]

open the auto feature dialog, then take a single hit and follow the text prompts in the lower left of the screen. Typically, it will want a sample plane first )for a circle) to establish a vector, 3 hits there and then 3 more on the feature I believe. Check out the help file, it explains the patterns for each

[Darrollh]

Thank you! I'm going to look at that now.

[kmcmm]

Are you using CAD with the live part? You can program to CAD even when you have the part in front of you. I'm kind of old school so I still use CAD=Part or iterative alignments to get everything snapped together but once your alignment is done, you can program to the model just like you do off-line.

[Darrollh]

I'm using a live part .I have a cad but things were added that's not on the cad. So I'm adding to an existing program .

[Schrocknroll]

If you know the X,Y,Z and I,J,K for the feature you can plug it right into the autofeature dialogue. Otherwise you can probe the part, as Don mentioned.

Do you need an autofeature? Could you use measured features instead?

[Darrollh]

I used measured features but it's a bit time consuming. They work but wanted a better/cleaner way to do it.

[NinjaBadger]

At the end of the day (unless you're reverse engineering) you need to have the correct theoreticals in there to compare against. Get up to speed with defining them in terms of XYZ / ijk Internal/External, Diameter Length etc.

[KIRBSTER269]

I avoid measured features like the plague. Even when I'm missing Cad features, but if the print has the numbers all I have to do is type everything in on the auto features correctly, that way if I ever have to do adjustments to the feature, it's a lot easier to make some adjustments.
Example, one of my CADs is missing the nipple. As seen below
Capture2.JPG


For example I know how long the size of the cone is, the size, the angle. Just make sure where it needs to be located according to my alignment, make sure my IJK's are good. and there it be.

Capture.JPGCapture3.JPG
Make sure you make your depth and ending offset is set to something. Don't want those 0, or your probe according to the length of that feature will try to touch the very ends may not have enough material for one, but also you need that probe to take good hits.
I have created my missing piece. A little time involved, but you don't like the way your probe is taking hits? So much easier to go in there and make some changes to your feature.