First, congratulations on being the first (that I know of) to request a hole table for helical thread inserts. After about 10 years of bitching by Pro/e users, PTC finally came up with NPT/NPTF in their standard hole functionality. IOW, don't hold your breath waiting for STI holes and callouts to be added.
Second, so that I understand what you're trying to do, I'll tell you what I understand, so far. You've been into the help files and found the .hol tables and the usually blank line with CALLOUT_FORMAT. And you've started to experiment with creating a custom hole note for your inserted holes. In addition, you've come up with some of your own requirements, such as putting everything in a single hole table for inserts and adding/reusing parameters in the table.
So, some things to keep in mind: while the table is quite flexible, in its crudeness, each parameter and the header names are reserved and serve different purposes. Some are real numbers which drive geometry creation and are directly tied to it in a sketch, unseen unless you go into sketch mode; some are simple text, such as THREAD_ID, which can be changed without consequence to the geometry or anything else, for that matter.
That said, it would be a simple matter to amend the "10-24" content of THREAD_ID to "10-24 UNC-2B" and if you wanted another with a tighter tolerance, duplicate the existing table with the THREAD_ID as "...UNC-3B" with possibly changed tap drill sizes. Or, you might consider merging file contents (UNF into the UNC file) then renaming header parameters to THREAD_SERIES1 and THREAD_SERIES2. In your CALLOUT_FORMAT, you'd use &thread_series1, etc to indicate UNC or UNF. However, here you could get into a little some evaluation and programming not supported directly in the crude table functionality.
Finally, a question: is this for a captive machine shop where you can make "gentleman's agreements" on such things as hole callouts? I wonder only because what you're requesting is so out of accord with any standard, ASME or MIL, that I've seen before, I'm curious why you're going through these gyrations!?! Specify an insert, 10-24x2D and in your table have a line for each variation, like 1D,
1.5D, 3D. The visual part depends on a sketch and a cosmetic to show the thread crest diameter and the cosmetic is built into the thread definition.
In the end, what this calls for is a more sophisticated interface, capable of parsing through the master table based upon a selection of drop-downs and inputs so you eventually narrowed your selection to a single hole with accurate geometry and an acceptable callout. Maybe by CREO 10. If PTC is still around, by then.
David Janes
Is there any way to add a custom variable to each FASTENER ID that I can use in specifying CALLOUT_FORMAT?
I am trying to make a table for STI tap holes, for both UNC and UNF threads. I would like the note to look like this:
10-24 UNC-2B STI DRILL .76 TAP .45 MINIMUM (FOR 10-24 HELICAL INSERT)
I don't know how to make it that the "UNC" in the first line can be either UNC or UNF. I tried adding a column onto the end titled "SERIES" and refer to &Series in my formatting, but Creo seems to not like this.
Obviously, I could make 2 .hol files, one for UNC and one for UNF but that is not ideal. Since I'm not using the "PERCENT_THREAD" value, it does seem to work by putting the data there, but that seems like a bass-ackwards way of doing things.
Any ideas?
----------------------------------- Creo 2.0