Our company fabricates many weldments, most of which have right hand and left hand versions. The parts within these weldments also have RH and LH versions.
What is the best practice to create and maintain these assemblies so that accurate BOMs and parts are accounted for?
I was thinking the join, then a mirror would work best, but then wouldn't one of my base parts be modified (with all the other parts adhered to it)?
I also want the LH version to automatically update when the RH is modified.
Our company fabricates many weldments, most of which have right hand and left hand versions. The parts within these weldments also have RH and LH versions.
What is the best practice to create and maintain these assemblies so that accurate BOMs and parts are accounted for?
I was thinking the join, then a mirror would work best, but then wouldn't one of my base parts be modified (with all the other parts adhered to it)?
I also want the LH version to automatically update when the RH is modified.
Also, are you using the "weldment" functionality to make weldments as multibodies or are you making an assembly with parts?
The "mirror assembly" is meant to do what you ask, with L and R assemblies with some but not necessarily all parts are also L and R.
The problem is that it doesn't work directly with the "Weldment" functionality, because proper "Weldments" in SW are multibodies.
You could go the work around of making the weldment as multibody, saving it as an assembly/parts, and then mirroring the assembly/parts. This would be associative, but would be kind of clumsy and give you an extra level of useless stuff to manage.
There currently isn't a function for multibody parts that works like the "mirror assembly" function. Nor is there a "Weldment" function that works directly in assemblies.
Another option that doesn't quite work is to make the weldment as a SW "Weldment", and then do a mirror part, and then make the mirrored part a "Weldment". This works great except that the cutlist made from the mirrored part doesn't have the description or length columns filled out. Of course you could workaround by copy/paste from the other cutlist.
Interestingly, the one method that actually seems to work is if you make a mirrored configuration within the weldment part. Make a new configuration, then mirror all the bodies, then delete the original bodies. This actually works, although it may be a bug that it works. I would expect it not to work for the same reason that the mirrored part didn't work: all the mirrored stuff is just dumb geometry. Don't tell anybody, they might fix it. Anyway, this method seems to give you the correct info in the cutlist, and gives you L and R versions. Although it's still a little clunky, it does work.
Matt
"Keith Streich" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:
Our weldments require a little more sophistication than what is currently available in SW2K5. Yes a weldment is a single part file in SW, but in the real world (industrial equipment and machines), weldments consist of many individual parts which may or may not be machined differently, change length, change shape, change location, etc. based on required conditions of the intended use or specifications. Therefore we currently use separate parts mated within assemblies to create our weldments.
Keith
left hand versions. The parts within these weldments also have RH and LH versions.
accurate BOMs and parts are accounted for?
one of my base parts be modified (with all the other parts adhered to it)?
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