More on design approach

Martin?

you actually cover the pros and cons well. From my point of view (remembering I am an industrial desiogner who gets too technical...) it depends... :-) How is that for a difinitive answer!

Seriously, my approach is to try and work with logical subassemblies as the product would be produced and assembled. Yes there are pros and cons, but I think in the long run it is clearer and has advantages in the master assembly to reduce clutter and confusion.

As for in-context relations, this is why you should look at assembly layout sketches. The principly being to define the key geometry and features as a sketch in the master assembly, and or subassemblies, and only linking to those. Generally I avoid working on part in the assembly to avoid unintended relations. In 2005 there is also a button to "turn of external references". In that case you can use the geometry to create a sketch, but the relation is imediatly broken to the orignating feature.

You also ask out how to transfer the intent of the assembly to someone else. Here is where the subassemblies help. looking at the feature manager you can see exactly the history and intent the designer had (or mistakes they made...). Also, if you are using 2005 there is a a feature in the FM caller the Design Binder. In that is a Word.doc - you can use that to document your design process and intent, including equations and screenshots - very useful. Also, if you RMB on features/parts/assemblies in the FM, you can add a "Comment", which makes a pop-up yellow sticky type call out when you mouse over the feature - also useful.

Hope that helps, Daniel

Basically I was going to same the same thing. My first criteria is usually how is it going to be produced? Are you going to want to detail out a wlmt ? How about something that will have bearings pressed in first, then taken to another station? You might also have shipping issues as in want to ship some of it separately. Just thoughts.

WT

Pardon my ignorance Wayne... what is "wlmt"? I am sure one you tell me I will say "do'h... !"

Short for weldment - weld some parts together, paint it, then bolt on the other stuff.

Hey, a question not asked may cause you to not know when you are in the company of more important people. Ask away - we're friends! (But sometimes wear your fireproof underwear...) :-)

WT

I finally had a look at this. I rebuilt one of the parts (the PCB) using this approach. The holes I need are square. Because of this the hole wizard couldn't be used. Regardless of this, using a sketch with points was vastly superior to the two approaches I took intially: 1- manually placing each copy of some sixty holes. 2- Using patterns.

[1] was just a dumb excercise [2] worked well, but several clusters of patterns had to be created

The layout sketch approach works very well and is very easy to maintain. Thanks for pushing me in that direction.

However...(always one of those)... it seems that there is not simply way (if at all) to use the sketch-driven-pattern approach within an assembly. The context is this:

A master layout sketch now defines the intersections where each button goes. These are construction lines.

I then created several sketches of points to mark off where different key/LED arrangments go. For example, there are round buttons with red LED's; square buttons with blue LED's, etc. By creating a sketch for each logical grouping I reasoned that I could very easily pattern the button/dome/LED/hole stack.

I can insert and mate a single LED by hand, but it seems that I can't use the point sketches to pattern that LED (say, all blue LED's). The only approach that seems to be available within an assembly seems to be to create a pattern and suppress selected entities. The point-sketch approach would be vastly superior.

-Martin

glad it is working... however... :-)

I think I have my head around what you mean. Without trying it myself, the goal is that if you have one pattern feature established in one part, you can patter components in the assembly by using the pattern at the part level to populate.

For example, if you have your PCB, and there happens to be a hole pattern (a) corresponding to the position of your keys, and (b) to your LEDs, place one of your snap domes and mate it. Now select the snap part and use the Insert > Component Pattern > Feature Driven. for the driving feature, select the pattern (a) or (b) from the PCB. Bingo!

However.... the only problem is that you may not have a pattern on your PCB.... so mate your rubber keypads first! I think it is not possible to place a component patten based on a sketch - it must be a feature. But someone else can prove me wrong... please!

Daniel