New to Toolbox

[adymech1]

I am using SW01+ and am new to toolbox (TB). Presently, I am using TB to create a variety of structural steel square tubes.

I inserted several steel tubes of different sizes into an assembly and now I want to add different features to these tubes. Some of these features should be suppressed on certain sizes of tubes. Basically, I just want to treat all the inserted tubes as different configurations with a host of suppressed/unsuppressed features. I am having many problems doing this.

I think I don't exactly understand how toolbox works. I downloaded a TB tutorial from the web but I am still not clear. If I want to insert a part from toolbox and add some features to it, where does this new part get stored? I mean how does the toolbox work? After I make all the changes to this part (i.e. add new features), will TB insert this modified part in the future everytime I need another unmodified fresh tube? I am having difficulty explaining my question...hope you understand. Should I create copies of the inserted parts and make changes to the copied parts and not to the original part that are in the toolbox folder?

Please help me out in this.

 

[SBaugh]

1) Everytime you add a new TB part to your assembly it creates a new configuration unless you pick an existing value. THen it uses a previous config. If you have to have more features on those files, then either open it up separately and make the needed changes and configs there or Save them as new parts not to corrupt the master files and use Add my parts wizard to add your parts to the TB.

2) In the Browser location of all your parts. - See the toolbox.ini file for the location of your parts. It is located under your SW root directory \Toolbox - 01+ maybe a little different then 03, 04, or 05.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[DesignSmith]

If you are going to work extensively with structural items in Toolbox 2001 Plus, goto Toolbox-Configuration, and turn on the option for "[x] Copy parts on [Ctrl] drag".
This is also where you get to set the directory for `Coppied Parts'.

Then when you need an item, hold the [Ctrl] key down when you drag it from the Toolbox browser. This will create a single length configuration copy of the steel item in the directory you specified. Now you can add features and suppress them in that part, without affecting all the various length configurations of that same size steel.

If you have features that vary according to length, (such as holes or slots) look to the Toolbox catalog of UniStrut shapes for examples of how to control such features with equations in the parts.


DesignSmith

http://www.DesignSmith-Services.com