Mirroring a Measurement Routine

[Darrollh]

Good morning,
Has anyone here mirrored a routine before? If so, how does that work and does it work well?

[QEThompson]

As long as you know what axis you are mirroring your program on the part or gage and machine it works well usually.

[KIRBSTER269]

Yeah it works good. The only thing you really need to keep a close eye on is your angle rotations of your knuckle. You might have to change if or as needed

[Mikeg]

I've only done it using MCOSMOS and the only issue I had was probe angles. MCOSMOS does not mirror the angles (not sure if PC-DMIS does) so I had to reverse angles before running.

[Schlag]

So powerful of a tool. I used to do whole programs all the time. Left / right version of the same part. 10 hours for 1 program, a few minutes for the other.

[KIRBSTER269]

Those 10 hour programs had 10 features

[Schlag]

more like 11

[bfire85]

It works well. However, you'll have to go through and validate features that may have variables in the THEO and TARGETS to make sure they are offset the correct way. I have a program that has offset variables in the vector points for pre-plate and post-plate. But the part has a left and right version. Flipping it worked great, but a few vector points were offset in the wrong direction about the axis I flipped.

[Mike Ruff]

To elaborate on what KIRBSTER269 said- if you don't already have the tip angles it should use for the new mirrored program defined in advance, it will automatically select the what it feels is the "closest" angle to the one you actually need. Other times, if you wanted/hoped it would use A-90B-90, it will use A90B90 (which points the same way, but can cause crashes depending on the position of the head when it rotates to it). I am usually close to the part when doing rotations to minimize time lost so having an unexpected A-angle change right above the part can really ruin your day