Common Uses for Tolerance Advisor: Creating and Modifying Datums and Tolerances

Tips & Tactics covers helpful hints and tutorials for CATIA V5 functions and those functions that make using 3DCS faster and more efficient.

This is especially helpful for those using 3DCS Variation Analyst CAA V5 Based, DCS's fully integrated tool for CAIA V5-V6.

This month's Tips & Tactics covers CATIA V5's Tolerance Advisor to assist with adding Tolerances, working with GD&T and with adding and modifying Datums.

Tolerance Advisor is a helpful tool in CATIA V5 that assists with GD&T and Tolerances. With a few clicks, Tolerance Advisor can help the user add GD&T, link surfaces and add other characteristics to their model.

This brief tutorial will walk through a few common uses of the Tolerance Advisor.

Common Uses for Tolerance Advisor

• Create datums and tolerances

• Keep GD&T linked with selected surfaces

• Create reference frames with datums

Datum Creation

1. Open the part that needs GD&T and switch the workbench to Functional Tolerancing & Annotation

2. Activate the Tolerance Advisor

3. Select a face

4. Select the datum icon in the Tolerance Advisor to create Datum A, B or C

Datum Targets

1. Create points on each surface that will represent Datum A

•These points must be directly on the surface(s) to create the datum targets

2. With the Tolerance Advisor open, select each surface to represent Datum A (Ctrl + left mouse click)

3. Select the Datum Icon in the Tolerance Advisor

4. Click in the blank list and click Add

5. With Point Only selected, click on a point created from Step 1

Datum Reference Frames

1. Open the Tolerance Advisor

2. Click the Add button

3. Select the datum(s) to create a reference frame

4. To Create other datum frames like A-B, select the first box on the bottom and select Datum B

Creating Tolerances

1. Open the Tolerance Advisor

2. Select a hole or a pin to define a diameter dimension with a tolerance

• Select multiple holes to show a note of “3X” (each hole must be the same size and planar)

3. Specify a numeric tolerance for the diameter

Pre-Qualifier

1. Open the Tolerance Advisor

2. Before creating Datum C, create a reference frame with A&B Datums

3. Highlight A|B reference frame and select the surface for Datum C

4. Select Perpendicularity and specify the size and click OK

5. Unselect the A|B reference frame and select the Perpendicularity Tolerance in space and select the Datum Icon to create Datum C

Final Results

This is the finished result with all datums, tolerances and dimensions. The view below can be used in a drawing file, or be saved as a PDF file. The tree can be edited to change a tolerance or edit a dimension. This will automatically be updated in the drawing as well.