Arrangements & Positioning Contraints

[fighterpilot]

I have an assembly where a base component is fixed by a positioning constraint and second component is placed using Touch, Touch, Distance (Default arrangement, called "Up") with respect to the first component. I now want to flip the second component such that it flips 180 degrees to some new constraints (the first Touch constraint is common to both arrangements). I called this arrangement "Down"

My question is how to show the Up arrangement and then show the Down arrangement. I had to disable some of the positioning constrants of the Up arrangement so I could define the Down arrangement. How do arrangements and positioning constraints work with each other? Or do they?

NX5

--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer

 

[JohnRBaker]

Open your assembly file and create your second arrangement (name the current one 'Up' and the new one 'Down').

Now go to the Constraints and select the ones which you wish to have in effect ONLY when you are in the 'Up' Arrangement (you can select more than one) and then press MB3 and select the 'Arrangement Specific' toggle (leave any which will be common to all arrangements). Now select individually each of these 'modified' (you'll see a change in status icon for these constraints) and press MB3 and select 'Edit in Arrangement' and make sure that only the 'Up' arrangement has been checked.

Now switch to the 'Down' Arrangement (you will note that the Constraints assigned to the 'Up' arrangement are no longer in effect, shown by their status icons being blank with no check mark). Now assign the additional constraints that you wish to use when in the 'Down' arrangement. Once created repeat the steps in the previous paragraph only this time making sure the when you perform the 'Edit in Arrangement' operation on the new constraints that ONLY the 'Down' Arrangement is checked.

OK, now you should be able to switch from the 'Up' to the 'Down' Arrangement and the constraints will switch with them.

I have included a simple example Assembly showing this set up.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[fighterpilot]

JohnR,

Yep, that gets me what I wanted to see. I knew Arrangements would be better than be adding two of the same components, with different assy constraints, into my assembly. I failed in getting to the second step where you select 'Edit in Arrangement'

I see I can specify an arrangement for a component of an assembly. I assume this is so I can use different arrangements of a subassembly within a context of an assembly?

--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer

 

[JohnRBaker]

Actually that's the whole idea behind arrangements, as the real value is when you need to show the same sub-assembly in multiple 'arrangements' in the same assembly.

For example I have a demo where I have an assembly with two identical 'Butterfly Valves' as components (sub-assemblies), but I need to show one valve 'Open' and other 'Closed' but yet I want my Parts List to show Qty = 2 for the 'Valve' item, as seen below:

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[fighterpilot]

OK, thanks for the explanations. I'm in a UG Advanced class now and I'm hoping we'll get into this some more. What I've learned so far is helping me right now.



--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer