Hey there,

I've beating my head against the CMM table for about a month now and am giving in and asking for help. Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who contributes to this community. I have learned so much in the past few months from this site alone. Now, sorry for the newbie questions...

Question #1.  When aligning to a part, if there are Datum callouts A B C, am I supposed to always Level to "A", Align to "B", and Set Origin to "C"? Or will any features that lock down the 6 DOF do?

Question #2. When writing a program that needs to be repeatable and minimizing operator "clicks" and joystick measuring, what are the best methods of syncing the part to the CAD model? For instance, I only have the two Runtime Aligns and Sync CAD in the attached program because somebody who I was told "knows what he's doing" told me to. But another knowledgeable person told me he never uses Runtime Align and suggested to use a Sync Part Reference Frame in place of them.

It would be so nice to find a complete example of a program from start to finish that is similar to the part I'm trying to measure, but I have not found much.

If someone (NATE!) wouldn't mind taking a look at the attached drawing and laying out what steps I need to do in what order, I would be eternally grateful! I'm quite confused on whether to consider Datum A as a plane on the left side of the part, or is it a center-plane? Same goes for Datum B. Also, please take a look at my program so far, and tell me what and why I need to change it. Thanks so much for anyone's time spent trying to help.

-Ted