Introduction

Often you will have a part where most of the features are measured on a CMM, but there is one extra feature requiring a hand-held gage for final measurement. Rather than create two different QCC files and group them later, all you want to do is enter one value for each inspected part. To do this, you will use manual dimensions in QC-CALC. Manual dimensions allow you to type a final measurement to complete the inspection of the part and include this data alongside the machine-measured features of your part.

This article will explain the steps of adding a manual dimension to an existing database using QC-CALC Real-Time. Creating manual dimensions is a bit different with QC-CALC SPC, so please read the related article for a description of this process.

Prerequisites

Normally, you want at least one part measured on the CMM already in QC-CALC. Although it isn't required, this will pre-fill all the machine-measured features and make it easy to add the manual dimension.

Directions

1. Inspect a part on your CMM and watch the data appear in QC-CALC Real-Time.
   
2. Choose File > Modify Database Structure.
   
3. On the Modify Database Structure screen, click the Database Settings tab.
   
4. In the Dimensions box, enter the number of Manual Dimensions desired. For this example, let's use 1. Click OK. A Dimensions window with two lists and your new dimension on the left side will appear.
   
5. Select the manual dimension on the left and click > to move it to the right.
   
6. Click OK. The plots will be redrawn, and the manual dimension will be added to the end with values set to nominal.
   
7. Turn on the Plot Properties window by choosing View > Plot Properties.
   
8. Move your mouse over the Manual Dimension plot and hit the F7 key to turn on editing. You'll see the background of the editable fields turn white in the Point Properties window.
   
9. Enter the name of the dimension by typing in the Dimension box.
   
10. Add the nominal value to the Nominal box.
    
11. Add the plus and minus tolerance information in the space provided. For example, if your nominal is 1.0 +/- .05, type .05 in the Plus Tolerance box and -0.05 to the Minus Tolerance box.
    
12. Use Nominal + (80% of the tolerance) for Upper and Lower Control Limits so the plot scales correctly. Using the example above, you would enter 1.0 + (0.05 * 0.80) = 1.04 for the Upper Control Limit and 1.0 + (-0.05 * 0.80) = 0.96 for the Lower Control Limit.

13. Hit F7 to turn off editing. You're now ready to enter actual values for your manual dimension.
    

14. Choose View > Manual Dimension Values. The Manual Entry grid will appear at the bottom of the screen. For each part measured, there is a cell to enter the actual value.
    

15. For each part, enter the measured value and click the Enter key after each entry to move to the next part. As you enter the data, the plots will reflect the new values.

Conclusion

You now have a Manual Dimension and a quick way of getting data into your QCC file even though it was not received from the CMM.