3D CAD Standards: ASME Y14.41-2003?
(Image from ASME Y14.41-2003 publication)
Does anyone use the 3D standards as laid out in ASME Y14.41-2003? Have you used them as a reference for your own company standard? Are you having any success with transmitting 3D standard type data to manufacturing? Do you find advantages or disadvantages?
I wish I worked for a company that did. It’d be neat to see it in action. I think it has a lot of potential. That’d be the day. No drawings. Just models…
I have a lot of the ASME standards and try to comply with my drawings as best as possible. Some things just aren’t practical for me and I use what works best.
I also happen to have 14.41 and have tried to implement it. This may just be me, but 3D annotation in SolidWorks isn’t doing it for me. There are many instances where I can’t get the annotation on the plane I want. This may be me not knowing what I’m doing, but it certainly hasn’t been easy for me to try and figure it out.
I don’t understand the hierarchy either. What is supposed to go where? Between annotations, reference dimensions, feature dimensions, DimXpert annotations, Dimensions marked for drawings or not. Place them in annotation views automatically or manually? I’m completely lost when it comes to 3D annotation.
A bigger problem that I run into is GD&T. All the designs I work on are manufactured in Asia. If I go through the trouble to fully define a part or a drawing using GD&T the vendors in Asia will look at the drawing as if it came from a different planet. Direct tolerancing of dimensions critical for functionality is working much better for me.
I’ve tried it, but I still think the DimXpert needs more work. For instance, there is no way to create a GD&T datum to a center plane. A lot of our parts are symmetric, and are detailed as such and there is no way to do it currently.
ASME Y14.5-2009 4.8.2 – The datum feature symbol identifies physical features and shall not be applied to center lines, center planes or axes.
Section 4.3 describes how to create a datum center plane or axis:
4.3 (b) a width as a datum feature (two opposed parallel surfaces) creates a datum center plane
4.3 (d) a cylindrical datum feature creates a datum axis
both of which you can do with Solidworks DimXpert.
@TMS
Hello TMS,
The latest version of the spec I am working to is ASME Y14.5M-1994(R2004), and doesn’t have that section, but the wording is there in 4.3.2.
I actually misspoke in my original comment. What I need to accomplish is to create an “primary external datum width”, as shown in Figure 4-13 (ASME Y14.5M-1994(R2004)) to convey the symmetrical design intent.
After doing a little research from your comment, I have figured out how to create this datum by using “Create Width Feature” in the DimXpertManager Auto Dimension Scheme.
You have to select one of the faces first before you can choose to create the width feature, and I had not understood the verbiage correctly.
Thanks for pointing this out, it will help me much!
I tried to use DimXpert and TolAnalyst Study for tolerances stack-up analysis of laminated parts of polyester film. Parts are positioned in mutual relation by tolerated dimensions. And here is a problem: TolAnalyst just disregards the tolerance of parts positioning: simply returns wrong result! Since the DimXpert tools are not available in the assembly file the problem is not solvable. Covnersely if you wish to run tolerances analysis in a single part after you got all GD&T data with DimXpert, the TolAnalyst is not available in the part file.