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Insert Part instability

This is a new one for me. New service pack seems to equal new regression, unless I'm missing something. SW 2005, sp3.

I do my core/cavity splits and then use the resulting parts as base parts for my final core and cavity. This has worked well for me for several years. Today I lost my base part.

I was back in the split assembly making some minor changes related to core pins. I had a core insert virtually complete at this time. When I went back to it, the base part was literally gone. I had the features after it in the tree, but they were multi-bodies and not connected because the base part was gone. I rolled back to just the base part and there was no solid body anymore. What I mean is the folders that contain surface bodies and solid bodies weren't there. Nothing there at all. Tried editing definition and re-selecting, but that didn't work.

I go back to the base part itself and that still looks fine. It's a good solid. No multi-bodies or open surfaces, just one solid body.

The only thing I did differently here than what I always do is use the mold tools. I have been doing a little bit of that lately with some success, but I don't use them all the way. What I mean is that when I am creating shut off surfaces, I choose the knit option and that gives me a core and cavity folder with a knit surface in each. I then use those to make my split parts. In this case I had edited the shut off surfaces to change where some core pins shut off. This would naturally affect the part referencing the new knit surface. As I am typing this I am wondering if that is how SW lost my base part.

I sure wish they would give it back to me. As usual, I called my VAR and had to leave a message. There's still 90 minutes left in their day, but I bet nobody calls me until tomorrow and then it'll be some guy who doesn't have any idea what I do. If I'm wrong about that, I'll post a retaction. This newsgroup is usually a much better resource than my VAR.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

jk

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jk
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OK, here's the promised retraction. He called me back 5 minutes after I posted. I was thrilled too because this particular fellow had left the VAR 6 months ago. Evidently they got him back and he's a good one.

We didn't find the problem, but did find a workaround. For some reason the knit surface in my base part was showing up as a solid, but the body wasn't in a folder for some reason. It said solid body (1), but there was no plus sign next to it and it couldn't be expanded, so I guess it wasn't really there. Only way to get my part back was to knit the surfaces without forming a solid. Then I thickened it and was good to go. Had to spend 10 minutes back in the derived part fixing sketches and re-selecting faces for sketches, but better than starting over.

Still pretty weird.

jk

Reply to
jk

John,

I've seen some strange behaviour with the way SW handles "bodies". Rib features seem to be the only ones that force you to specify which body they apply to. When extruding "up to body", the model turns a blinding shade of pink or light blue where the features and edges aren't visible, only the outline. The "feature scope" for extrude features on multibody parts sometimes gets some wacky results, swapping one body for another without a reason which seems immediately obvious. For some reason, it seems to handle surface bodies much better than solid bodies. Bodies which are visible sometimes go awol from the folders. I'm superstitious and hit ctrl-Q 3 times if I see anything like that. Sometimes it works, but even if it doesn't, sometimes it just feels good to swear and bang on the keyboard...

I wouldn't be surprised if your lost body showed up tomorrow in a place where you wouldn't expect it. Glad you got a solution, but sorry it seems like such a kluge.

I gave up on using the SW mold tools, except for the "core" function, which is actually really nice for some stuff.

Was there any file name changing going on? I've seen that have some affect on the Split or Save Bodies features. Was there any multi- assembly incontext business (single part with references from more than one assembly)?

Matt

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matt

"Sometimes it works, but even if it doesn't, sometimes it just feels good to swear and bang on the keyboard..."

Boy have I been there..........

Anyway, thanks for your insight. The problem seems to have been with the functionality of forming a solid when knitting surfaces. After making changes to the component surfaces (1 actually) of the knit surface, SW told me it was a solid-with no errors , but it didn't show up as a body in any folder-nowhere except visible on my screen.

Another interesting thing is that last night, after thickening the knit surface and fixing all of the resultant errors in my derived part, I saved and quit for the day. Today, the split-level assembly opened up fine. But when I opened up the derived part-every one of the rebuild errors needed to be fixed again. I saved again and exited and re-opened and it is now fine. I know I saved everything last night too-sure hope this doesn't keep happening.

As far as the mold tools go, I am kind of forcing myself to at least get familiar with them. We'll see if `familiarity breeds contempt'.

jk

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jk

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