PART FAMILY FASTENERS HELP PERFORMANCE?

[jkcone]

Hello
My question is in NX6 will using Part Families for fasteners instead of individual files help or hurt performance in assemblies?
In a typical design we could have anywhere from 100 to 500 components. Most of them with at least two SHCSs & two dowels of different sizes & lengths.
Currently there’s a separate file for each size, both diameter & length. These are located in a single library.
If we started using a single Part Family screw, dowel & jack-screw (one file for each) for all the different sizes would this tax the system more or less?

Your experienced opinions on this would be appreciated. Also any advice from people who have made the same change over would be appreciated.

Thanks,
James

 

[JohnRBaker]

There should be no impact whatsoever on performance since using a Part Family template to create your components will result in individual files being created anyway. That is how Part Families work, the master template file is used to generate, when it is first used, a COPY of the precise family member which is the actual part file used as the component in the assembly and it is saved as such when you save your assembly.

The only time there might be a performance issue is if when opening the assembly, NX is not able to find the components created using Part Families, and if you've toggled the Load Behavior option 'Generate Missing Part Family Members' to ON in the Assembly Load Options, then the system will have to stop and call the Part Family master templates and create new copies of the missing family members on the fly. However, if you have saved the family members where NX can find them when opening the assembly, either with the assembly itself or in a search folder, there should be no real difference when using Part Family members versus individually created components.

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.

 

[looslib]

There is no difference because you have individual files for each member of a part family.
You must have some Pro/E experience from your question because their family tables will save some memory since all sizes are actually contained in the single generic file.
This is one area where PTC had it right and UGS/Siemenens did not.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli