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Solidworks and CNC tolerancing debate

rastapapa

New member
Hello,
I have been told that most machine shops these days do not look at the dimensioned drawings and that they import the solidworks file to the CNC machine and set the part going. Having dimensioned a few drawings myself, I couldnt understand how dimensions that are unique to one edge and not the whole part (for example certain edges that only have a single direction allowance i.e. +0.000 -0.005) could be understood by the CNC file. Is there a file that solidworks produces for that CNC machine that records the tolerances that were dimensioned in the drawing? What is the file that is used from Solidworks for CNCing?
 
The solid works model is in theory "perfect" and they load that in to get the exact locations of features. Then they use the print to check to make sure they are in tolerance. That's what some of the shops we deal with do and it works fairly well for them. But like you said, the CNC doesn't see the tolerances so it's up to an inspection process to determine if the machine is running correctly.
 
The solid works model is in theory "perfect" and they load that in to get the exact locations of features. Then they use the print to check to make sure they are in tolerance. That's what some of the shops we deal with do and it works fairly well for them. But like you said, the CNC doesn't see the tolerances so it's up to an inspection process to determine if the machine is running correctly.

Am I right that there is no way to include tolerances on the digital model? As I understand it, all tolerances are only described on the drawings - which can not be read by a CNC system. Is that correct?
 
From what I understand from talking to a couple of the machine shops that we work with, the CNC system looks at geometry and doesn't care about dimensions/tolerances at all. I'm not sure about solidworks but I know Creo can input tolerances in a 3d model but again, the CNC system can't read them because it's looking at geometry, not the dimensions. I also believe the shops we deal with are taking the solid models and inputting them into Mastercam, which I have no clue how to operate.
 

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