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 SPC. Creating manual dimensions is a bit different with QC-CALC Real-Time, so please read the related article for a description of this process.

Prerequisites

Normally, you will want to have 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 dimensions and makes it easy to add the manual dimension.

Directions

1. Open the .QCC database file to which you wish to add a dimension in the Edit Data view (spreadsheet). If you are in Plot View, choose View > View as Edit Data.
2. Choose File > Modify Database Structure
3. On the Modify Database Structure screen, choose 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 appears with two lists and your new dimension on the left side.
5. Select the manual dimension on the left and click > to move it to the right.
6. Click OK. To find your new dimension, scroll your screen to the right (using the scroll bar at the bottom) until you reach the end of your machine-measured dimensions. The new dimension will be named "ManDimension1."
7. Choose Edit > Nominals and Tolerances to open the Nominal and Tolerance Settings window.
8. On the left side, select "ManDimension1" to edit the properties.
9. On the right side, type a new Feature Label for your dimension.
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 field and -0.05 to the Minus Tolerance field.
12. Click the Limits tab.
13. In the Upper XBar Control Limit and Lower XBar Control Limit boxes, type 80 into the "%" box.

14. Click OK.

15. For each part, enter the measured value directly into the grid of your new dimension (the values will start as 0.00).
16. Press the Enter key after each entry to move to the next part.

Conclusion

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