Assembly Constraints aren't transferring to Part Family Members

[AbergYork]

Hello all,

Long time reader, first-time poster. I finally have come to an issue which I couldn't find on the database.

I am creating a part family of turnbuckles. The turnbuckle itself is an assembly, consisting of components such as the body, jaw ends, and a nut and bolt. I created the "assembly template" using the individual part templates, and I fully constrained the assembly. Upon member creation, however, I am getting very strange results. Constraints seem to not be obeying-- almost as if they are not associative (the "Associative" option is checked when constraints are being made).

For the sake of troubleshooting and this discussion, I've greatly simplified the assembly. What I would like to do is align the two "cylinders" of the two components and add a 1" gap between the faces. I've done this on the first photo attachment, the template. I would expect that the member, when created, would be similarly aligned and have a 1" gap. This does not happen, however.

If you have any suggestions, I would appreciate hearing them. Thanks, Andrew

 

[AbergYork]

And so here is the created member file. You can see that the distance constraint is still there, however is not effective. The "Fix" constraint is also causing a problem.

NOTE: I get the same results whether Fix is enabled or not.

 

[JohnRBaker]

We're going to need the actual part files before we can make an sort of recommendation. Also, what version of NX are you using?

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

 

[AbergYork]

Well for starters, this is NX 6.0.3.6.

Unfortunately, if I wish to supply the part files, it gets very complex. Remember that there are part family templates within assemblies of part family templates. What I'll do is zip the required files together for two cases: the family template and one member. (The member will be the very last one in the family spreadsheet).

More to come after lunch; I'm starving.

 

[JohnRBaker]

That should be enough.

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

 

[AbergYork]

Attached is the template ZIP.

 

[AbergYork]

And here is the member ZIP. JohnBaker, thank you for your prompt response and attention. Please let me know if you encounter any problems with the files I've supplied.

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, try substituting the attached Assembly Template into your file set and see if this works any better. Note that all that I did was to delete and replace the 'Align' constraint only this time I used the explicit 'Infer Center/Axis' Orientation method and selected the nearest axis reference on the 'Turnbuckle' component (you can see what I mean by selecting the Align Constraint and then look at what highlights on the screen).

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

 

[AbergYork]

John,

I had not been having trouble with the "Infer/Center Axis" constraint; that one seemed to work.

The problem came with the distance constraint. When I generated a member based on your template, I got a similar result as before-- photo attached.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I don't understand. Replacing ONLY the Align Constraint resulted in what I thought you were expecting, as shown in my attached image.

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

 

[AbergYork]

Interesting. There must be a difference between our systems. When I received your file, I generated the member and posted a picture in the post at 14:50. The constraints did not appear to function.

Then in your post 1t 15:27, you show your generated member-- and it appears as it should. Any ideas for this difference?

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'm running NX 6.0.5.3

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

 

[AbergYork]

Are you familiar with versions enough to say whether it could have something to do with the problem I'm having? If that is the definite solution, I will request an upgrade from my boss.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I should also mention that the first time I tried to generate the family member, the result I got looked exactly like your picture. After I deleted and recreated the Align Constraint in the master assembly template I now get what you see in my last picture. It would appear that it's not JUST an issue of going to a newer version, but that you had to actually create the new constraint in the newer version (note that I never messed with the Distance, but rather only the Align constraint).

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

 

[JohnRBaker]

All I know is that a lot of maintenance was done in various NX 6.0 MR's based on feedback that we were finally starting to get back from the NX 5.0 users who had been using Assembly Constraints.

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

 

[AbergYork]

Well, I just tried your same procedure without any luck. I can only assume that your software was able to generate the constrain properly while mine was not. Is there any changelog I could look through for a newer version to check whether an upgrade is required, or if the problem exists somewhere else on my system?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[AbergYork]

Edit: Boss denies upgrade request. I suppose I will be applying dimensions manually for families such as these, unless something else comes along.

 

[JohnRBaker]

You could look through the release notes for each MR to see if any of the fixed PR's pertained to this issue, but even then so much work was being done with respect to Assembly Constraints that this could have been fixed as part of something else where it might not even be mentioned explicitly.

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