Prepared by: arunks123@gmail.com for http://mechanical-engineering.

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This article is all about the basic dimensions and their use with datum targets.
As we know that the basic dimensions are theoretical exact dim. required to manufacture a product and are shown as: Ф10
For a basic dimensions no (plus/minus) tolerances are associated. (Even a general title block tolerance does
not apply!) Instead, the feature that is being dimensioned basic are controlled by geometric tolerance that
provides the actual tolerance for manufacturing.
For basic dim. 1.50 is being controlled by a profile tolerance, but no such rule is there for datum targets!
Now the question is : What governs the accuracy of where those datum targets are?
Ans): Geometric tolerances are applied to features of a part (FOS). A datum target is an imaginary
point, line, or area that is simply used for fixturing or gage setup. It’s not the responsibility of a
product drawing to worry about the tolerancing of a gage or fixture!

Datum targets are used :

=>Establishing datums for uneven surfaces.
=> For parts with uneven or irregular surfaces such as casting, forging, welding, and heat treating.
=> may also be used to support irregular-shaped parts that are not easily mounted in a datum reference frame.
=> used only when necessary because, once they are specified, costly manufacturing and inspection tooling is required to process them.

If three adjacent normal surfaces are to be identified then three datum

targets are required on the primary surface; two are required on
the secondary surface and one is required on the tertiary surface.

The figure illustrates the representative drawing . The datum face A is

identified with the three datum points A1,A2,A3,. The datum face B is
positioned using the two datum circular areas B1 and B2. The datum
surface C is positioned using the datum circular daturm surface C1