Grounded Parts in Assemblies?

[enginerd1959]

I'm a new NX4 user, coming from a SolidWorks background.

It appears the first part in an assembly is "Grounded" - locked in place.

Is there any way to make it ungrounded, and/or make other parts grounded?

 

[joycejo]

In NX4 you could mate the first part to a Datum CSYS in the assembly file to lock it into place. NX4 uses Mating Conditions that are based on a From and To condition. When you add the second component most users will mate the new component "To" the first component. So it appears that the first component is "grounded" You can still use Move component to reposition the initial component.

In NX5 and 6 you can use positioning constraints and "Fix" a component into place.

John Joyce
Tata Technologies
1675 Larimer St.
Denver, CO

http://www.myigetit.com

NX3,4,5,6 Solid Works, Pro/e, Solid Edge

 

[JohnRBaker]

Also note that starting in NX 5.0 you can edit which, if ANY Components are 'Fixed' (AKA, Grounded), or if you could benefit from having more than one Fixed Component, something which was not possible prior to NX 5.0.

As John pointed out, the old Mating Conditions scheme was based on a From/To (some call this a Parent/Child) relationship and therefore had to have the first Component 'fixed' in same way, either by assuming that the first component placed was fixed or by mating it to something which was, such as a Datum plane. BTW, in the case of a Datum Plane, 'fixed' did not necessarily mean that it couldn't be moved, just that relative to ALL the Components being mated to it, it was as good as being fixed. That is that complete set of mated Components made up a single collections of objects pointing back to a single 'fixed' object.

I hope that was clear enough. I would recommend that you move to at least NX 5.0 as soon as possible since the new Assembly Constraints are much more flexible and less prone to limitations.

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.

 

[enginerd1959]

Thanks John, and John,

I work for a very large corporation, so I have absolutely no say in when we upgrade.

The rumor is we're going to leapfrog NX5 and upgrade from NX4 to NX6 next year (probably about the time NX7 is announced).

 

[JohnRBaker]

Trust me, NX 7.0 will be available long before "next year".

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.