Hi all, Is there a point at which seperate part files are beneficial compared to single multi-body part file. I'm working on a project and I've built a weldment multi body part (cut list has 521 parts in it). Should I work on the premise that if it isn't welded together then it's a seperate part. Comments/feedback on your experiences are much appreciated. Regards, David K
We do some weldment parts over here, but really never that big. What I do though, is to leave out everything which need to be laser cut, so I can make a separate dxf from it. I never put in anything which is not welded together with the other parts, then I prefer an assembly with the weldment part as a base. In SW2008 You can now rmb a weldment in the bom and dissolve the cutlist inside the bom to get the material out.
// Krister
I see it primarily as a question of how you want/need to document it (i.e. draw it). If you need drawings of individual elements of the weldment (e.g. lasercut profiles) then it may be easier to do it as an assembly; I know you can split off bodies from a weldment, but the one time I tried it I found it to be unsatisfactory, as the element was at an angle and it therefore seemed I couldn't lay it out in the drawing as I wanted.
If one or more of the elements is a standard item, used on several weldments, then you can model it as a separate part and "insert part" to add it to the weldment. This method doesn't work well if the element is only used on this one job, because you can't access the part dimensions from within the context of the weldment (in the way you could with a component in an assembly).
If the elements are just lengths of steel sections with a few holes, then the multi-body part route seems to be by far the easiest, with the least overhead for file-naming (especially if you don't have pdm).
John H
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