Part Family Contstraints

[mycon73]

Hi,

I'm creating some standard models & part families seems to work well for pre-defined dimensions. Is it possible to have user enter values for specified dimensions or constraints, rather than going through a list of pre-defined criteria, then selecting desired component?

Also, is it possible to use conditional expressions within a part family table?

Thanks


Jason Misztal
Fuel and Utility Systems
UG Designer

Goodrich Corp.
Rome, NY

 

[hudson888]

Jason,

It probably isn't really the answer you're looking for, but the whole point of part families is that you create a spreadsheet associated with the base part family file. The spreadsheet contains all the variables that you could hopefully ever want. Mostly these days people are using windows based systems with Excel as the spreadsheet, and once saved it can be edited off line to populate a list of variations on the basic item.

For the second part of your question the UG part file uses expressions in more or less the same way as any other model so conditional expressions should work normally. You might use them to turn on and off an element of the model as required according to how members of the part family are specified. Trying to do too much with part families may however prove less convenient to the end user than separating different types of designs into different part families.

One of the features of part families is that the spreadsheet always contains a column of names under which it will maintain part files for each of the variants. Once the spreadsheet and the part family UG model are in place you can generate the listed model variants as saved part files. You probably know this, yet I can't see where in an interactive situation you could plug in a file name even if you varied the dimensions by means of conditional expressions etc.

Most people finish off by adding the part families to templates. John Baker provided a splendid example with nuts and bolts some time back. We have built on that as an example and have it working really well.

Regards

Hudson

 

[phillpd]

Jason,

Have you considered using a deformable part ?

Specialty Engineered Automation (SEA)

http://www.sea4ug.com

a UGS Foundation Partner

 

[mycon73]

Hi Phippd,

I am not familiar with deformable part. Where can I find more info. on this? Does this requireq a "special" licience?

Thanks


Jason Misztal
Fuel and Utility Systems
UG Designer

Goodrich Corp.
Rome, NY

 

[hudson888]

No it does not require a special license. You need a standard assemblies license to take advantage of it.

The first step is to define what you are going to deform. In NX-3 select Tools>Define Deformable Part. Start with a simple cylinder and work out how to deform the diameter for example.

Once you have defined which parameter you want to be able to change you should add the component you have prepared to an assembly. Upon adding the component you're offered the opportunity to vary the deformable elements.

To maintain the context your assembly will have added to it some features and expressions that you can edit to change the deformation. There is also an option under the left mouse button when your deformable part is selected via the ANT.

Unfortunately as of NX-3 I could only use a value expression with the deformation. No formula function or conditional expressions are valid.

Regards,

Hudson