NX - Cutting Full Assembly in half for 3D Printing

[ROK99]

Does NX have the ability to section, and eliminate half of an assembly, so that the remianing solids can be turned into an STL file for printing?

I have a large fabrication assembly made up of several hundred parts. We'd like to make a 3D Print of half of it (so you can see the internals). It is a frame made up of welded plates. Some plates cross the plane we will use to cut it in half, but most parts reside entirely on one side of the section plane or the other.

Right now, it looks like I have to parasolid them, unite them all into a single body, and subtract a block from one side? This is super labor-intensive, and many parts are just touching and may not unite very well.

Thoughts?

 

[Lockdain]

A section in NX is really not a true section, i mean it's only a representation of a view section. In this case, in my opinion, it's better for you to use the WAVE-links or Promote all the bodies onto the assembly level and then split all the bodies by the plane.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Have you tried 'Assembly Cut'?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[ROK99]

Thanks John, I will give that a try.

I've only used Assembly Cut on single parts. But you're saying it will let me do one cut operation on 150 Target bodies simultaneously? Effectively removing half of a machine?

 

[Lockdain]

BTW, 'Promote Body' works near the same, but could provide more flexibility in your case, and could be transformed into WAVE-link, if necessary.

 

[ROK99]

The Assembly Cut did the trick! It took some time, but looks great.
Thanks John!

 

[JohnRBaker]

BTW, for the record, 'Assembly Cut' is a function which does all the Promoting behind the scene while providing a simple consolidated menu to perform all the steps needed to 'cut' the components of an Assembly without actually editing the original Component models. Of course, that means that Lockdain was correct in suggesting that using Promotions would provide a solution, just that 'Assembly Cut' makes it a lot easier, particularly for users who may not be all that familiar with Promoting bodies.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Lockdain]

Hello, Mr. Baker!
I was participated in the long discussion about Promoting vs. Assembly cut at the other CAD forum, and my point was that Promote Body, no doubt, is more complex, because it requires at least two steps to get the result, but this feature is much more flexible - because it gives you an ability to use not only the boolean features (like the Assembly Cut do), but any feature suitable for the current promoted bodies. Anyway, it's necessary to create the tool body for the further Assembly Cut, if i recalled it the right way.