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Design table generated assembly does not stick to its table parameters inside another assembly

I am modeling a line of furniture that has a great amount of resemblance between different pieces, like a desk, file storage cabinet, credenza, etc. I have used a design table to define major dimensions of a drawer "carcass", i.e. height, width, depth, which is linked to design sketches within the assembly. These design sketches define the major dimension of an assembly envelope, and then individual parts are mated to the surfaces of the envelope. I create different configurations within the design table for the different pieces of furniture.

This scheme works fine within the drawer carcass assembly, so I tried to do the same thing with a drawer assembly. I have about 2-3 different drawer sizes to use within a single assembly; for example a credenza might have a shallow drawer on top and then two deeper drawers below it. I have created an assembly with different configurations (as described above) for different drawer sizes.

The problem is, when I bring the drawer sub-assembly into the drawer carcass assembly, it will only show the "last used" configuration of the drawer sub-assembly, regardless of which configuration is selected under the properties for that sub-assembly. So if I try to mix drawer sizes within a single configuration, it doesn't work.

Am I missing something? Am I not able to use different design-table-generated configurations for a sub-assembly within the same assembly file? If not, how would I go about achieving the same goal without creating separate configurations of each individual part within a drawer assembly?

Dylan

Reply to
Dylan
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Does it say "in-use" after the assembly in the feature manager? If so, I don't know what to tell you.

From the description of the problem, it sounds like your real problem lies in the components of the subassembly. If the components of the drawer are defined in-context to the drawer subassembly, those components will need a configuration for each configuration of the drawer. This is because a single configuration of a component can't have more than one geometrical state at the same time.

Reply to
Dale Dunn

snipped-for-privacy@thegateway.net (Dylan) wrote in news:59c8f51c.0405110334.5e017a79 @posting.google.com:

If I understand the issue correctly, the problem is that you are making incontext parts with your assembly configurations. It sounds like there is only one configuration of the drawer parts, so that is the only one that can be shown, even if you have multiple assy configs.

There are a couple ways around this.

1) SW claims to have solved this problem in the last release or so, but the solution is kinda weak. You can configure sketch relationships. So, for each part config (yes, you have to make part configs to go with the assy configs), you can turn on or off in context sketch relationships. To me, this seems like a lot of work or clumsy.

2) Build the parts as multibodies in a single part where you don't get the in context limitations, make part configs which size the drawer, then use the split command to save the bodies out as separate parts referring to the original part. This sounds kind of cumbersome too, but it works well. I've used the scheme on a couple of consumer products, and I prefer it to other methods. I have a small example on my website using a hinge -

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, go to the swparts link and scroll down.

matt

Reply to
matt

Yes... I was only able to get "top level" assemblies to generate and stick-to their table parameters, so having two instances of the same assembly with two different table-generated configurations did not work. So parts that are defined by the dimension of a sub-assembly's envelope, for example, will not display differently within the same assembly.

I was forced to make multiple configurations of each individual part. That seems like a bit of a pain; though I can see that down the road when I'm creating the drawings, having one size for one part configuration will make generation of the shop drawings much simpler.

Not sure if there is a better way to do this?

- Dylan

Reply to
Dylan

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