Driving/Driven Dims.

pretty sure that is a limitation of solidworks. sounds like you might want build the part to use two different features where you suppress one & unsuprees the other per config. Then each feature can have the dimensions set the way you want. & can also have all other like dimensions linked. Where as with one feature you have this limitation of driving driven across configs.

Hope that helps Steve T.

Well sort-of...

I am trying to create a library part of a component with many size configurations, and from different vendors. Turns out, 2 of the vendors dimension one of the features from one end of the part, the other 2 vendors dimension the same feature from the opposite end.

I think I figured out a work-around by having equations in the design table. (OAL - D1 from a non-used column is the same as dimensioning from the opposite end).

You can! But it is not entirely logical.

After you defined your configurations: In "Edit sketch" mode press "Display/Delete Relations" and set your dimension to suppressed (it is the same as driven). Remember to select "This configuration" BEFORE you change the suppression state. Your dimensions will only be displayed as "Dimension1", "Dimension2" etc. Dimension names are ignored. Accordingly your header in a design table will be "$STATE@Distance1@Sketch1" and the value "S" for driven and "U" for driving. For me it is unstable when using derieved configurations, but mostly OK for plain configurations.

Thomas Voetmann

Thanks TV. I did know about being able to suppress dims by configuration. But its one of those things that you just don't use very often and forget about. This will work great. I know you say it is not very logical. But in my case it will be. You would have to see what I am doing to understand.

There are no derived configs. As a matter of fact, there will be only one config..... HUH?!?! Why a DT then?!?! OK, I'll try to explain. These components are one-offs. They are used specifically by the job so a copy of the file it put into the job folder as a starting point. I have all of the data in the DT for any size needed, but there is a blank row after the first config in the DT so only one config is ever created (always named Default). Basically what the user does is to determine the correct component that he will need for the job, edit the DT and find that config data down in the list below the blank line, copy the data to the first row ("Default" row), and the info and size for that config is created always in the Default config. I originally simply had all the configs created, and the user would delete the configs not used. But I have found that this new method is actually quite faster and the file size remains very reasonable when dealing with 100-1000 sizes/configs. Also, the config is always named "Default" which eliminates problems in certain situations.

Also, thanks for explaining how to get the suppression of dims into the DT. I didn't know if this was possible or not.

We have many parts in our library setup that way. It takes more time to setup, but I prefer this method to lots and lots of different configurations.

FYI, did you know that if you add a column to your DT with the heading "$PART NUMBER", that that value will be displayed in paranthesis next to the word Default (i.e. in the configuration tab)? I find that to be very convienient so that the user doesn't have to open the DT to find out which configuration the part is in.

Ken

Actually, what shows up there for me is the value from the $DESCRIPTION column of the DT. Of course this can be flip-flopped to user preference by right clicking the part in the feature tree (on the configuration tab) and selecting "Tree Display".

I'll have to check that out. Thanks. Ken