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BOM order

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jjax

Industrial
Jan 28, 2004
19
The Bill of materials feature in assy. mode generates a BOM that is shown in the same order that the components are listed in the model tree. Is there anyway to alter the .fmt file to sort them by a parameter value.

Thanks in advance.
 
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I am not sure if what you asked for it is possible, but a good practice is to always use coordinate systems for assembling. This way, any component can be suppressed, re-ordered, etc. at anytime

im4cad
Pro Design Services, Inc.
 
I disagree. Using the coordinate system for assembly location, while might be Top-Down design, makes it harder to re-use parts in a future assembly.
Our assembly guidelines call for all parts to be mated and the detail parts to be oriented to 'canned' views.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand
 
You can have as many coordinate systems as you want to be able to use the parts in as many assemblies as you want. Mating and aligning parts may become more difficult to handle in case you replace a component that has "children".

im4cad
Pro Design Services, Inc.
 
jjax,
As long as your boms are not too long this can be done using relations.
Replace the rpt.index parameter, in your bom table, with e.g. ItemNo
Go to Table, Repeat Regions, Relations
Create a simple relation at the command line, say ItemNo=1 and save it.
Edit the relation in pro tab, or whatever you use, to produce something like the following.
if <parameter_name>="value1"
ItemNo=1
else
if <parameter_name>="value2"
ItemNo=2
else
endif
endif

Extend the above to suit the bom, make sure to balance the "ifs" and "endifs", - cutting and pasting speeds things up a lot. Note that if the parameter name includes a period this must be replaced by an underscore, as shown above.
Sort the bom by the column ItemNo (Table, Repeat Regions, Sort Regions). As the parameter rpt.index is still associated with each item, the bom balloons will still work without modification.
Sorry if this is a bit long winded, but its not too bad when you do it!

 
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