positioning parts outside of an assembly

[Walterke]

Some more assembly related questions which didn't suit my other thread, so here goes:

Our machine is built up out of several subassembly's:
Machine
[tab]chassis
[tab]hydraulics
[tab][tab]pump
[tab][tab]hydraulic reservoir
[tab][tab]valve1
[tab]engine & engine parts
[tab][tab]engine
[tab][tab]exhaust line
[tab]bodywork
etc.

It is built up this way because when you make a BOM like this, it gives it a good structure. It's also easy that you can just hide, say, the bodywork, in one click.

now, for example, in the hydraulics assembly we have our hydraulics reservoir, our pump, and some valves.
Most of those are bolted to the chassis or to other parts in the machine.
The problem is, however, that we are not able to constrain them that way, as they are not part of the same assembly.

What is the recommended way to make this work? (I'd rather not go the 'aircraft coordinates' route, for reasons explained here)

NX 7.5
Teamcenter 8

 

[jerry1423]

You really don't need to constrain them to anything, you can just set them in space wherever you want and they will stay there.
You can also load them into your assembly with an "empty" reference set. They will appear in your parts list, but not in your model space.

 

[cowski]

You can use override position to move the parts in the subassembly. With the 'machine' assembly the work part, expand the parts in the assembly navigator, right click on the valve and choose override position. You can now move or constrain the valve as you wish and its position will be controlled by the 'machine' assembly instead of the 'hydraulics' assembly.

 

[looslib]

For your group collector assemblies, you can either override the positional constraints or place them in a combined coordinate system/positional constraint setting. Posistion a main component by coordinates and the rest in positional constraints from the first.

What is the best feature of NX..So many ways to do the same thing.
What is the worst feature of NX..So many ways to do the same thing.


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

Ben Loosli

 

[Walterke]

So many ways to do the same thing.

I was afraid that was going to be the answer.

We used to work with override position, but didn't like those because, when we only open the subassembly, all positioning is gone.

Posistion a main component by coordinates and the rest in positional constraints from the first.

this is what we're doing now. Was hoping there was a better way.

It would be nice to hear how other companies manage these kind of things.

NX 7.5
Teamcenter 8

 

[cmacca]

We wave into the subassembly the bodies of the parts we want to constrain to so you are actually constraining the parts in the subassembly to waved bodies. It works well but you do now have to manage waved bodies which may or may not be an issue.

NX 7.5.2.5 mp2, TC 8.3