Link a Sheet Metal Gauge name to a property

[tfriedayNAS]

Hello all,

I am trying to link the sheet metal gauge to a property so I can call it out on the part drawing.
I can get the thickness as a property like "0.0747", but what I am really after is having a property as "14 ga".

I got as far as creating a design table in the part and using a very long IF statement to link the gauge callout (14 ga,16 ga,etc) to a property based on the thickness in the sheet metal property. I can then create a link on the drawing to the new property that has the gauge callout.

This sorta works. My problem is that I would have to set this up for every sheet metal part. I tried to create a macro but it doesn't go through the entire process before having an error and locking up solidworks.


Has anyone come across a way to get that "14 ga" to a property?
I was wondering if there was a way to link the gauge table that I am picking from to get the desired thickness and output the gauge to a property.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Use a Lookup table?

http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/excel-help/vlookup-HP005209335.aspx

-or-
Create a set of pre-defined part templates with the property already defined.

 

[tfriedayNAS]

Here is what I have so far.

Attached is the Part Template I am using to crate sheet metal parts. I have the thickness and gauge property set up in a design table with the IF statement.
So I can create a new part using this template, create a sheetmetal part with desired thickness, and then refresh my design table using a macro to set the "Gauge" property to match the thickness set by the sheet metal feature.

Only problem is the design table has to have the property links already established prior to the sheet metal part being created.
So the initial time I run my macro and update my design table, it actually takes the value that was preset in the design table and changed the thickness of the sheet metal part.

So in order for this to work, I create my sheet metal part using this template, but before I update my design table with the macro I have to edit the sheet metal feature so it can override all the thickness values in solidworks for that part.

So now I am on the hunt to find a way to get the macro to also refresh the sheet metal feature before it updates the design table to prevent the design table from driving the thickness of the sheet metal feature.

If that all makes sense, lol.