Kind of embarrassing newbie question regarding tolerances

[RBobroski]

I've been in the industry for about a year doing design work/drafting, and for the love of me I cannot figure this out. Sometimes dimensions will show as nominal in my drawing, and the nominal box will be greyed out. Other times I can change the nominal value within the drawing itself, and change it from nominal to show Plusminus tolerances, etc.

My questions are:
1) How come some dimensions can be changed within a drawing whereas others cannot?
2) If a dimension is grayed out as nominal, but I want to show it with +- superscript subscript tolerances (e.g +.000 -.002) how would I go about doing this, since I can't change the dimensioning scheme from nominal? I can manually show a symmetric tolerancing scheme by typing it in as a postfix on the dimension, but if it isn't symmetric I cannot get it to display properly.

Thanks for the help in advance. I'm still getting the hang of proper industrial practices / good design intent.

 

[aafuni]

You need to go into your drawing options file and set "tol_display" to yes. Save this file and have your drawing template load the file with your settings.

Once you do this, you can change the display in the dimension properties window.

I have an issue with my install where if I want to use the limits display I first need to select nominal, then put my upper and lower in under nominal, and then switch back to limit display. If anyone knows how to fix that I will be happy.

 

[RBobroski]

Alright. Unfortunately I cannot find my drawing setup file. The config.pro references a filename that doesn't exist.

If this file doesn't exist will pro/e just load default settings? Or will it give an error?

Once I create my own (I take it I just make a .txt file and say tol_display yes?) I apply it by adding in my config.pro drawing_setup_file /filename.dtl? Do I have to manually add on the .dtl when saving the text file, or will pro/e accept the .txt?

And once I make those changes, will it propagate through my drawings already done, or do I somehow have to refresh the individual drawings so to speak? I currently don't use a template as much as I use a format, although I really should set up a standard template.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dgallup]

Get a drawing setup the way you want it and save the settings. You will need to read this file into all your existing drawings.

 

[RBobroski]

Aha. This explains everything. for some reason my config.pro was pointing to a nonexistent .dtl file. Upon correction of that and adjustment of the tol_display, everything works as it should. Thanks!