Family Tables 1

[edgarob]

In family tables in the add colums there is a mege part and reference model option that shows when doing a part model. Every time I click on that option there is no list that comes up but I get an error message in the header that says no reference models found. How do you get a reference model to show up in the list?

Thanks,

 

[JohnAndrews]

I use this method with top down design, where I want to create different family table instances of an assembly which uses a skeleton part to drive the components in the assembly.

For Example, I want to design a square box with a lid, and have different size instances of the box and lid.
I have a skeleton model which is a box shape, with a datum plane representing the lid height. I create family table instances of this skeleton to represent the different size boxes which I require (BOX_SKEL, BOX_SKEL1, BOX_SKEL2). The skeleton box surfaces and lid plane are put into a publish geometry feature. The box base and lid parts copy geom the geometry from the skeleton generic, and the features are made to complete the designs.

To make instances of the box base (and lid) open the part and create a family table and add the column "Ref Model", this brings up a dialog with the skeleton generic which you can select. In the table, you have to enter the name of the required skeleton in each cell in the Ref Model column, i.e:

Instance Name Ext_Ref Part
BOX_BASE BOX_SKEL
BOX_BASE1 BOX_SKEL1
BOX_BASE2 BOX_BASE2

Hopefully this has explained the method okay. It works very nicely, and really helps if you want to create skeleton driven family assembles.