Solidworks Assembly - Part Blocks? 2

[renasis]

Hello,

I am working with SW 2007 on XP. I have an assembly with a bunch of leads. Each lead is a separate part. I want to move all the leads around like similar to a block in a 2D drawing. Is there mate that can do this? Can I turn it into a block?

I do not want to turn the leads into a sub-assembly, because it will cause issues with my BOM.

Thanks,

-ren

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

It depends how the parts were created and mated. Have you left the correct DoFs to allow the movement required.

Don't let the BOM rule/ruin the design. Using 'dummy' parts and the Exclude from Bill of Materials option, the BOM can be very easily tricked into reporting whatever information is needed.

 

[Gurjjeet]

I am not sure if SolidWorks 2007 has it but in SWX 2008, you can use "Lock" mate.

It works somewaht like block or group in AutoCAD.

 

[ctopher]

Maybe make them into a sub-assembly?

http://www.solidworkstips.com/dtmembers/members/preview2.html

Chris
SolidWorks 09 SP4.1
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[renasis]

CorBlimeyLimey,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have thought about working around the BOM by using the Exclude from Bill of Materials option, but never tried it. By dummy parts are you referring to a part file with multiple parts?

Thanks,

-ren

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

By dummy part, I mean a part in name only ... no sketches or solid geometry. The part is empty other than custom properties which are read into the BOM.

"I do not want to turn the leads into a sub-assembly, because it will cause issues with my BOM.
".
If you did turn the leads into a sub-assy, the "Do not include..." option could be applied to it, and the dummy parts could be added (in place of the sub-assy) just to populate the BOM.

 

[andrewjohns]

Create a sub-assembly of the parts. Then in your "BOM" just "disolve" the sub-assembly. The advantage of this method is that the sub assembly you created is left intact but the items are shown independantly in the BOM.

Andrew

 

[renasis]

Andrew,

Is this functionality available in 2007? I tried, but wasn't able to find this option in BOM on the drawing.

Thanks,

-ren

 

[Updraft]

renasis,

The advice to put these into a subassy is probably the best, however, there it may not be necessary to dissolve them. You might have to move them again and then you would have defeated the benefit of once having them in a subassy.

You can affect how the items are displayed in the BOM very easily. There are many options for affecting the BOM display, they just aren't all in the same place. Some of your options are in the BOM table selection itself, some are in the properties of the subassy accessible from the top level assy feature tree and some are properties of the part files themselves or from within the subassy they belong to. A little poking around and decoding of the help will benefit you in the long run since you'll avoid having to trick things or perform work-arounds.

- - -Updraft

 

[MechEng2005]

Or create 2 independant files. One with the leads as parts, and the other with them grouped as sub-assys. You need only create a drawing for the one with parts. It could even be the same .sldasm file, with two configs. The assembly would contain twice the number of leads required (once as a loose part and once as part of the subassy) and suppress either the loose parts or subassys for each config.

-- MechEng2005