countryguy
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2014
- Location
- Mich, USA
The Son and I started looking on ebay one eve just to see about used CMM prices. I have tried to do some homework, read some basics, and even called a few CMM resellers. I'm confused as a CMM newb on what I could or could not do with (say a) $4 or $5K used CMM from the 80's or 90's w/ some form of ancient PC and (usually) some PC-DMIS version? Say 4.x version (I see 4.3 and 200x listed often for versions ).
I just wanted a primer on what it's high level capabilities are? Anyone have a paragraph in them on what we could do as a father/son start-up w/ a older manual CMM w/ some type of early CMM software package? I also see some others from other vendors but this PC-DMIS seems most common.
Say I want to inspect a part. Plate ID 123: Suppose it is 4" x 8" x 1/4 thick 1018 steel. Has 3 holes. OD.5" 1" and 1.5" inches. I want to test and report on several data points to pass/fail it, record the data on the test, and then print a report (or stuff it into a XLS or DB CSV file). Is that in the realm of this type of buy? again... clueless but seems like some basic that would serve us and save some time and cost ?).
- Could I put the plate down on the manual CMM, pull up (some job ID) on the PC / CMM package indicating we'll check and report on plate ID 123. Maybe a wizard on-screen provides the walk-thru and instructs me through some type of testing routine?
- Can I import DXF (at least) of plate ID 123 and then in some fashion via the PC-DMIS program quickly and w/o a programming degree setup a part test procedure that would get reused over and over.
Just wondered if there is a good reason or not to keep looking at something like this for us?
2 vendors just wanted to stuff me into a full-on used CMM retrofit system w/ crazy $16K starting points and I understand that's cheap in CMM world but we are just not there.
I just wanted a primer on what it's high level capabilities are? Anyone have a paragraph in them on what we could do as a father/son start-up w/ a older manual CMM w/ some type of early CMM software package? I also see some others from other vendors but this PC-DMIS seems most common.
Say I want to inspect a part. Plate ID 123: Suppose it is 4" x 8" x 1/4 thick 1018 steel. Has 3 holes. OD.5" 1" and 1.5" inches. I want to test and report on several data points to pass/fail it, record the data on the test, and then print a report (or stuff it into a XLS or DB CSV file). Is that in the realm of this type of buy? again... clueless but seems like some basic that would serve us and save some time and cost ?).
- Could I put the plate down on the manual CMM, pull up (some job ID) on the PC / CMM package indicating we'll check and report on plate ID 123. Maybe a wizard on-screen provides the walk-thru and instructs me through some type of testing routine?
- Can I import DXF (at least) of plate ID 123 and then in some fashion via the PC-DMIS program quickly and w/o a programming degree setup a part test procedure that would get reused over and over.
Just wondered if there is a good reason or not to keep looking at something like this for us?
2 vendors just wanted to stuff me into a full-on used CMM retrofit system w/ crazy $16K starting points and I understand that's cheap in CMM world but we are just not there.