Tabulated Part, Defining Features in Assembly

[emorel22]

Good day all,

I'm a relatively new SW user (about a month) coming from being a power user in Inventor. Most of the features and commands from one to the other are pretty parallel, and in fact I'm finding SW a bit more intuitive. I have yet to figure one thing out though that I would find helpful. Either it's a really easy solution or it may not be able to be done in SW.

I've gotten the hang, pretty quickly, of configurations and using the Design Table function. However, I am wondering if there is a way that I can create a part that asks me for a defining feature only when I place it into an assembly. This was something I did and took advantage of often in Inventor and am just trying to make my SW experience as equal as my AI experience.

For example: Say I need to create an assembly with different lengths of the same diameter piping. In Inventor, I could create a tabulated part and define the length of the pipe as a parameter to be defined later in an assembly. So I create a 1.5" Sch. 40 pipe part number, place it into an assembly and it prompts me to enter a length. That way, I don't have to create a model or configuration for each length of pipe I will need. This is very similar to how the Tool Box fasteners come in. Select a diameter and define a length. I just can't seem to recreate it!

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

 

[JMirisola]

The thing with the Toolbox fasteners is that all the standard lengths have already been defined. Perhaps it's because I've never thought to travel down this path, but I know of no way to insert a part into an assembly without it existing as a model. Even using routing, which creates pipes, would create a part file in the end. If your pipe example is something that you'll be doing a lot of, you should definitely check out routing if you have it. I suspect it'll work out for you.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

 

[Updraft]

emorel22,

You should check out all the capabilities of Toolbox. I'll bet it can do what you want, but you might have to add custom profiles. Look particularly at how it handles the insertion of structural shapes such as angle iron and channel. These are actually just sketch profiles that are extruded to the length. I do not use this feature so I can't tell you exactly how to do it, but it sure looks like the road you are looking for.

- - -Updraft

 

[emorel22]

Thanks for the insight guys.

Routing looks interesting, and the toolbox idea does as well. I didn't know you can add custom profiles to Toolbox. It's not specifically pipe I was looking for, just an example. I'll investigate what you guys have said and see how it goes.

Thanks again.

E. Morel
M.E.