mold design dwgs w/display states

Hi John,

I'm dealing with the same issues here. Display states seem to be the way to go, but I have had trouble with my section views showing parts that should be hidden (i.e. fasteners in front of the section line). I'm curious about the statement above...

"What I mean is you can create the section directly from the b-side display state view and then change to the default DS in the section view-it's just not correct."

Can you explain what the problem is with using this method? Are you seeing any negative side effects besides the section view's "bonus components" mentioned above. Aside from that problem, I've had good luck with this approach. Of course, it would be nice not to have to manually hide components which should be hidden by the software.

I would appreciate any other mold design/detailing tricks anyone has to offer, as I've only been doing tool design with SolidWorks for the last

-JOSH

Yup. It always seems to be fasteners. Also not all-just some.

The first time I tried this, the assembly model was open in the b-side display state. Then when I created my section view and changed the properties of the drawing view to have it show the total display state, the section view became a side view rather than a section view. Not quite a valid side view either-just a real mess.

Then I tried it again, but had the assembly model open in the total display state. Then the section view was better, but was still displaying fasteners that should have been behind the section cut.

Are you

I have only tested this new feature on my mold base library assembly-not a full mold. I am nervous about trying it in the heat of battle because I am not sure what it's going to do when there a lot of sub-assemblies involved. I agree that it seems like it should be the way to go, but it doesn't appear like it's working properly yet.

I would suggest a search of this group for specific issues because many of them have been discussed over the years. Another idea would be to consider going to SolidWorks World. There you are going to have the best chance of talking to others using the software specifically for mold design. Plus there are several mold design related sessions this year.

Good Luck, jk

This drove me crazy as well until I finally figured out a work-around, and it doesn't involve display states. Sounds like I set my mold drawings/assemblies up very similar to you.

1. Create your views and BOM from a view that is a complete mold config (probably do that already). You may choose to hide this view or leave it shown, your decision.
2. Balloon all views as you want to, including the a-side and b-side views. Yes in these views the balloon numbers may be currently wrong.
3. Once ballooned, right click the a-side view and go to the properties.
4. Change the configuration to the config that shows the entire mold (same config that your BOM was taken from). and click OK. No, we are not going to leave it like this.
5. Now, go to the properties again. In the bottom left, check "keep linked to BOM" and select the BOM from the drop down list. Also, change the config back to the a-side config and click OK
6. Balloons will now match the BOM.
7. Repeat this for each of the other views that are not the full mold config (such as the b-side).

This is what I finally figured out in SW2005. I don't know if the same procedure is necessary in SW2006 yet or not. We just upgraded about a week ago.

Hope this helps...

I never figured it out in 2005. What you are saying makes sense in a wierd workaround way. From what I can tell in 2006, all I have to do is check the box to link the a- or b-side views to the BOM and the numbers seem to be OK. I'll keep a close eye on this until I get comfortable with it.

I think the solution could have come from display states, but I don't think that functionality is ready for prime time yet. Too bad because it could have eliminated the need for the view that I always hide and having to create section lines twice.

Thanks for the reply.

jk

John,

For the 2 designs that I did in SW2006 I used the display states. I still used 3 display states however, a-side, b-side, and ALL. The actual cross section was done on the ALL display state just like I normally do to the ALL configuration. There are 2 big benefits from display states as it applies to how I do mold design prints...

2) The time it takes to switch between display states is super fast compared to switching between configs.

I didn't run into any problems related to display states when I did these 2 designs on SP0.

Roland

Thanks for the input Roland. I am just switching over to SW2006, and have not done a complete mold design in it as of yet. So this is definitely something I will be trying now.

That's interesting, thanks for the reply. So, I guess that means that you still need to create a `fake' set of section lines in b-side display state drawing view.

I definitely appreciate the benefits you mention, but was hoping to also eliminate that other step as well. I'll take another look at this on my next job. Luckily I have a string of M.U.D. units coming and these are nice little jobs to try stuff out with.

Any problems related to sub-assy's?

jk