CMM Manager - Gage Ball Measurement
How to obtain both the gage ball engagement depth and the overall gage ball height.
Set up your alignment. In this example, we will set the origin in the center of the circle above the cone.
First measure the top plane and set the Level to this Plane.
Measure the center circle above the cone. Set the Origin to this Circle.
Finally measure a line in which we will align the part. Set the Align to this Line.
Now we will measure the cone. We can report the cone angle/ half angle if needed.
Measure the plane at the top of the cone. Plane1
Now intersect the cone and Plane1.
Now, construct a line through the intersected circle using "through a point, parallel to a line". Below shows the method. We used the X axis to establish the parallel line.
Now we need to construct intersection points between this line and the circle. Enter the Line and the Circle and manually select which intersection point you need, Do this method twice to obtain Point1 and Point2.
Open the Construction/ Point and get the apex of the cone. This is done by selecting Centroid of a Feature.
Next, construct lines between the Apex Point and Point1. Then Apex Point and Point2
Let’s now create the Gage Ball Circle. Construct/ Circle and select Tangent to 2 Lines. Enter the Gage Ball diameter, in our example 1.500 inch.
Creating the Gage Ball Engagement Depth
Now Construct/ Point. Select Intersection of Line and Circle. Drag the tangent circle and line into the dialog box. You will need to do this step twice to using Line3 first then Line4 to get points on either side of the cone. You may report the engagement depth for each point or construct a line between these points to report one depth. This is the method we will use.
Construct/ Line. Select between 2 points.
Report/ Distance Between. Enter the newly constructed Line and the Top Plane and report out the Z depth. This will be depth of when a 1.500 in gage ball is dropped into the cone this will be the point of engagement.
Overall Ball Height
Report the Overall Ball height from the top plane. Report/ Distance Between. Enter the Tangent Circle and the Top Plane. In our example, we need to select the Min. Distance under the Distance Options.
This concludes the method to achieve both the reporting of the gage ball engagement depth and the overall height of the gage ball when dropped inside the cone.
I’d like to thank Michael Khoury, Applications Engineer with QX Soft for help with this article.
