Configurations in Assemblies 1

[Drhinehart]

I have a part that the only thing that changes is the length. I have the lengths set up as different configurations and inserting them into and assembly I am building up. All the sudden SW can find the configurations I created and is going to the last saved configuration. I have checked all the variations are there in the file even thought this so called 300 mate limit might be the problem so I spent the last two hours building sub-assemblies to cut down on the top level mates and the problem is still there.
The only way I can get SW to see the configurations is to either open the part before the assembly or remap the references to the file. Which I do not understnad this either becuase I am just telling SW to look at the same file and then everything is fine until I save and try to open the assembly again and the configs are lost.

Can someone please help trouble shoot this problem?

 

[crjones]

Use a design table. Set up a assembly configuration for each length that you want. Then create a design table in one of the columns use $configuration@(part name)<instance> to set you different length components into the proper assembly

 

[engAlright]

Just a thought here - is the file with the configs in it located on a network drive? If so, had there been multiple copies of this part in the past?

Sounds almost like the assembly is looking for an older version of the part that doesn't have your configs in it. This would explain why it works fine when you open the part first and when you re-direct the assembly to your part.

You can check this by opening up the assembly as you did when it had the problem, then going to File - Find references.

 

[Drhinehart]

I found the problem. I opened the file on another machine and everything was OK saved it and tried to open on the machine that was having the problems and still could not find the configurations. I did a search for the file and there were files on the network with the same name but nothing was in the path were SolidWorks should be able to find it. After searching and testing I found that the file reference path had been set up by someone to look into one of the other paths first. So I am assuming SolidWorks found a different copy of the file there but for some reason when I looked at the references it was calling it out at the right place but pulling info from the wrong place. Cleared out the reference file path and everything works fine now.

Thanks to everyone for your help..