replace component nx6

[uwam2ie]

In nx 6 the component replace assy feature has been enhanced with maintain relationship - on mating and constraint relation. I want to control those relation like the feature replace assistant in modelling. Is there a way to activate it?
thx in ad

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you explain in perhaps a little more detail what it is that you're looking for?

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.

 

[uwam2ie]

John:
I want to replace an exisiting compoment with another. I use the replace component feature on the to replace component in ant. Now the replace component dialog comes up, I choose the new component and aktivate maintain relations option an alert is comming up that the component to replace is not aversion of replacement part - now or in this workflow a dialog for the mating or constraints should appear, like the feature replace or wave replace the relation can be controled,added or changed visual in the divide graphic area.
I hope I could clear it up
thx

 

[JohnRBaker]

While it's conceivable that we could to do something like this with Replace Component, the reason why Replace Feature has it now is that with a Feature, if you do NOT provide a scheme to redefine references, it's virtually certain that the Feature will be invalid and the Replace operation will fail, period. Whereas with a Component, even IF the Constraints fail to update correctly, the Component itself will STILL be valid and can exist in the assembly without referencing anything (i.e., no constraints). Therefore the NEED to provide an on-the-fly scheme to modify/redefine the constraints is NOT nearly as critical as is the need to modify/redefine a Features's references. In the case of a Component, if the constraints fail, you can just accept the incorrect results and then manually go back and replace/fix them without having to do it in the middle of the Replace operation.

So I'll admit, we took advantage of the less critical nature of Replace Component to provide a simpler, albeit less comprehensive scheme. The other issue is that maintaining existing Mating Conditions/Constraints is MUCH easier than trying to maintain Feature references. That's just reality, pure and simple.

Trust me, if we could have come up with a scheme to reliably maintain Feature references or managed to keep a Feature valid without ANY references, we would have probably used a workflow not all that different than what we do with Replace Component now. After all, if you're going to have to provide a function to redefine Constraints anyway, even if it was NOT part of a Replace Component operation, why should we clutter-up the Replace Component workflow with a bunch of options and extra steps which, if everyone did their job right in the first place, would hardly ever be needed?

So if you want to contact GTAC and have them open an ER, fine. But if you do, I wouldn't expect this to be given a very high priority, and I hope may comments above explains why in all likelihood that will be the case.

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.