newbie:How to save components with seperate sections?

Hi,

I hope that I can ask this question intelligently.

Is there a way to save (or construct) components in Solidworks, such as, say, a connector or header, so that when the saved IGES file is read into some other program, the other program "sees" separate parts of the connector as different components as opposed to one homogeneous component?

That might sound strange and I hope that I asked the question properly. But consider what is required when doing electromagnetic modeling. I want to be able to assign different material properties to different sections of a component (plastic, copper, etc). If the component is one contiguous mass, as it appears to be when I read the IGES file into my microwave modeling software, then I can not assign material properties to different sections. I would have to rebuild the component and that could take several hours.

Since we have a license for Solidworks, I am considering "reading in" manufacturers IGES files and manipulating them so that I can perform the simulations that I require.

Any ideas?

Tom tom_cip snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

Reply to
Teece
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The most straight forward way would be to build the connector as an assembly. It might also be possible to make a multi-body part, but I'm not sure how the export works on those.

Some connector suppliers (Samtec comes to mind) provide assembly files for their parts. That should make it easy. For the suppliers who provide a single IGES part, you will have to split out the various pieces. It might be easiest to build your own parts for the simple repetitive pieces over the scaffolding of the IGES part, then subtract them from the original converted part. If you are working in an assembly you would use the Cavity function. If you are working in a multi-body part you would use the Combine function.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

Reply to
Jerry Steiger

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