Bill of Materials - Add Block Sizes to Parts List

[tallard]

Does anyone know a way to have UG include overall X,Y,Z sizes of assembly components to the parts list? This would be especially helpfull in Mold Designs where the parts list have to include stock sizes for some of the assembly components. Running NX3 in Win XP.

Thank you.

Tim

 

[HellBent]

If an attribute is created with the info you can have the parts list pull that attribute...that's not a Moldwizard function...it's a UG function. All Moldwizard does is eliminate some mouse clicks with most of those icons in it's toolbar. Moldwizard uses the "CATALOG" attribute by default for stuff like sub-inserts to list the stock size. Your parts list should be pulling the "CATALOG" field already for all of the component part #'s so that is where the size would show up for a sub-insert if you used the Moldwizard toolbar to create it.

But be aware that Moldwizard is an infant. Every release gets better and/or changes...so don't get too used to anything...lol. It doesn't put that stock size in a slide body for example....you have to go into that file and create that attribute manually. Or...if you use the "Bill of Material" function in the MW toolbar you'll see a list of your components pop up. Then at the bottom you'll see an "Edit Stock Size" button. Select your component...hit "Edit Stock Size"...and then it will say something about a file not existing (it means the attribute)...hit continue and then it will change displayed part into that component and it will attempt to calculate the overalls of the solid you have in there. If you need to you can even select a different body for it to calculate. Once you hit "OK" it creates an attribute called "MW_STOCK_SIZE" and adds your stock size as the description. So...if you pulled that attribute you would get your stock size in your parts list. But that attribute doesn't exist in most of your mold parts so now you have an extra column in your BOM that is blank for 90% of the parts. Again...MW is yet to have one good way of doing it. Your best bet would be to go back into that file and change the attribute's name from "MW_STOCK_SIZE" to "CATALOG" so it shows up in the same column on your parts list as some of the other stuff will. But another frustrating note....that "Bill of Material" function often doesn't work. I often times can't get components to show up in the list for me to even do the "Edit Stock Size" command on. I haven't figured that one out yet. I can't seem to find what it's looking for at the assembly level in order to be recognized as a component and included in that list. But it will work sometimes....lol.

You have to create a lot of stuff manually in Moldwizard. Mold drawings are still a bit crude. And you end up having to do so much tweaking to the "canned" BOM functions that I just do my BOM's manually....it ends up being just as fast and at least that way I take a final in-depth look through my tool. If you get in the habit of setting a few attributes every time you add a chunk of steel you could use the "canned" parts list commands and have it turn out pretty nice....if you remember to set all those attributes...lol. Again..when all is said and done you have so much time into tweaking and creating stuff that you might as well have just typed it all in.

It just occured to me that you may need to know how to set attributes Right click on a file in your assembly navigator and then select "Properties". Then select the "Attributes" tab and you'll see them all. Another note...when creating attributes you should only do so with the part as your displayed part..that's the only way the attribute gets made properly. If you just make it your work part and set the attribute you'll notice that when you make the part your displayed part and check the attributes that one won't be there. It would only be "remembered" at the upper level you had displayed when you created it. That's fine if it's only going to be referenced in a drawing that is a part of that upper level, but if it's a library component for example...when that part is pulled into another assembly....that attribute wouldn't be there. So I just keep myself in the habit of making the part my displayed part before creating any attributes. Well that turned out to be a book didn't it?...lol. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Take care...

 

[tallard]

Sounds like exactly like what I'm looking for. I purchased mold wizard at the same time I purchased UG back in V18 but haven't used it yet. My mold desgns are just assemblies with a lot of wave linked bodies, faces and curves to maintain associativity. Mold wizard training has not been offered in the Boston area and I have not had the time or the patience to try to figure everything out on my own. Thank you for your response. I'll be using the "attribute method" to define the stock size for each component. How do I edit the parts list to include it? I am using the standard 3 column you get using insert - parts list.

Thanks again!

t.

 

[tallard]

Please disregard the last (stupid) question. The parts list updated automatically. Thank you very much for your help.

t.

 

[HellBent]

No problem. By doing things the way you have been...your transition to Moldwizard will be pretty simple. I actually don't even use about half of the Moldwizard commands. They add a crap-load of overhead to already huge assemblies and they really screw up your assembly tree...putting stuff in places that make your tree a real mess. There are some functions that will save you a lot of time though. The trimming functionality is great...trimming pins, etc. It automatically sets the pin clearance height in the substraction body, etc. The first icon I use in that toolbar is the moldbase one...all of that product and part family stuff is worthless to me. From there I setup my trim bodies (sewn together sheet bodies). You just need to define them as your MW trim sheets from within the "Mold Trim" icon. Then they can be used with the other MW commands like "Ejector Pin" to automatically do the trims and set the clearance depths, etc. The "Slider/Lifter" stuff is convenient to get your basic geometry and the cooling library is real handy. That's about all I use out of it.

Take care...

 

[tallard]

Thanks for the advice. I tried the BOM inside MW and it does a real nice job of getting the overall stock sizes from the solid bodies. It puked though when I tried to export the MW BOM to excel ("this is not a mold wizard project"). It did update my BOM in drafting though with all the block sizes nicely and I was able to export the table from there to a text file then imported to excel. A few extra steps but still a big step in the right direction.

Thanks!

t.

 

[HellBent]

Yeah...some of the MW functions won't work if you don't use that product stuff (the first few icons in the toolbar). There are work-arounds for most of them though. Really the only thing MW does that you can't do in UG out of the box is offer you some handy component libraries and an interface that replaces a few manual mouse clicks. Almost everything else it does is stuff you can do manually and avoid all the MW overhead; wavelinks, trims, arrays, etc. The downside is, as mentioned, some of the misc functions won't work without that overhead existing in your assembly. It's getting better though....

Take care...