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GD&T Symbols

GD&T Symbols

GD&T Symbols

(OP)
I am working with a drawing that came out of the Czech Republic, and it has some symbols I'm not familiar with. One is a vertical line "|" and the other is a caret symbol "^". Any ideas on what these mean?

Jeff Parham
Mechanical Engineer
Mining Trucks

RE: GD&T Symbols

I have not heard of them, but if you could post an example, it may help us to understand how they are used and possibly what they mean. Those with access to the ISO standards may have better info than mine, but I do not recall them being in that standard.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services
www.infotechpr.net

RE: GD&T Symbols

(OP)
The vertical line is used with several hole callouts. While the caret is used when datums are sett up. We're thinking that it may be position and runout or flatness (respectively), but no one is completely sure. I've attached a screen shot of a few of them.

Jeff Parham
Mechanical Engineer
Mining Trucks

RE: GD&T Symbols

I might suggest that these are symbols that didn't get translated or carried over, perhaps because of the use of a different font or file format issue.  It would be impossible to tell what they are supposed to be without the original information.  

My guesses would be that the hole is being given a Positional Tol, and the shelf is given a parallel tol.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

RE: GD&T Symbols

Missing font would be my guess also.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

RE: GD&T Symbols

(OP)
I didn't think of that, but it's highly likely. Thanks for all the help everyone.

Jeff Parham
Mechanical Engineer
Mining Trucks

RE: GD&T Symbols

(OP)
The old AutoCAD files have the symbols too. Something got lost somewhere along the way.  

Jeff Parham
Mechanical Engineer
Mining Trucks

RE: GD&T Symbols

For a small fee plus expenses I would be glad to go to Prague and investigate further for you.

RE: GD&T Symbols

The symbols and callouts on the drawing relate to GD&T like the "pig-latin" language relates to English.  You know, pig-latin -- Larry = ArryLay.  Big = igbay.  Put the first letter on the end and add "ay".

It's not just the GD&T symbols -- this seems to be an ad-hoc or local GD&T variant.  Perhaps the vertical line is a location symbol, with the carat a perpendicularity symbol.  The uncapitalized x's are capitalized X's.  AB as a datum is A primary anb B secondary -- and so forth.  If you had a lot of their drawings, you could set up a rosetta stone to perform the translation.

RE: GD&T Symbols

(OP)
I located more drawings with the same issue, as well as some drawings for similar parts from other companies. I was able to decipher things a bit. I talked to the CAD Administrator (who wasn't happy that all these drawing slipped though unchecked apparently). We figure somewhere along the line, files were transferred and the receiving computer didn't have the necessary character set. And there's nothing we can really do about it besides some up with a key/legend of sorts. Good thing, problem solved. Bad news, bigger problem uncovered.  

Jeff Parham
Mechanical Engineer
Mining Trucks

RE: GD&T Symbols

It is not a bad thing to uncover a problem this way. It is a bad thing to uncover it when you can't prove the parts are bad because the drawings are bad. Now you can correct the problem before it gets out of hand.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services
www.infotechpr.net

RE: GD&T Symbols

Looks to me like they have bodged together the symbol for runout and squareness with the nearest they could find on a keyboard.. same with the max metal symbol not being in a circle.

RE: GD&T Symbols

I have seen the same issues here at my company with drawings only produced in the US, in particular with Autocad drawing files opened in Autocad knock offs programs. Sorry, the ISO can not be blamed for this also. Maybe it's the Bildibergers (sp, whatever).  

RE: GD&T Symbols

I agree with others that this is a font issue.  The vertical line is probably a lower case "L" .  In the GDT font, a lower case "L" is the LMC symbol, while the caret is profile of a line.

Joe
SW Office 2008 SP5.0
P4 3.0Ghz 3GB
ATI FireGL X1

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