Promotion of Bodies vs. WAVE and or Both

[mander66]

Just wanting to get peoples opinions of using each type of NX features and pros and cons of both. I am setting up working parameters at a ccompany that is set to kick off into NX from CADDS5. Is it a smart idea to eliminate all promotion of bodies way of working, and stay with just WAVE? is it possible for both of them to live in harmony? will Promotion of bodies be supported down the road? is WAVE the way of the future? I know we are discussing ways to use both and all opinions seem to be pointing towards JUST WAVE and WAVE only. Including changing the weld assistant preference to wave method as opposed to Promotion method. I remember when Promotion of Bodies was the preffered method however, like my earlier post regarding Mating Conditions, and Assy Constraints, is this another itme I should get comfortable with? and incorporate WAVE into our work procedures and ways of working?

 

[JohnRBaker]

While Promotions and WAVE linking are both fully supported, generally speaking WAVE linking is the preferred approach particularly when sharing referenced items in the context of associative designs where features of one model are dependent on features/objects in other parts.

However there are still some workflows where Promotions provide some advantages, such as where a model changes from one manufacturing step/process to another, such as modeling forged parts where you need multiple progressive stages where the model changes to reflect either net-shape changes, like blanking, forging, trimming and then the post forging machining operations. In this evolving part workflow there is never the idea that this series of parts would ever be in isolation of the other members of the 'family', where as design models where I'm linking say the locations of mounting holes from one part to another or sharing some shape from some design model down to parts derived from that shape, the end state is that these parts which might contain WAVE links will be utilized while being totally isolated from their parents, where that would never occur with respect to the the 1st and 2nd stages of a forged piece part workflow. Also people who design weldments have also utilized Promotions for their unique behavior that proved to be an advantage.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

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.