Wah! I want balloons! Automatically

[weirDeveloper]

Hi,

Playing around with BOM tables for the first time. The tables show up fine, but there are no balloons showing in my drawings. I can add balloons one at a time, but I've got lots of pieces - I want auto balloons. Auto balloons is jst greyed out.

Tried help and read all the balloon-related threads here. Clicked away at show annotations.

My drawing consists of weldments, with many of the parts being the same profile. I'd expected it would be dead easy to sum the lengths of parts that all have the same profile. I see I can add equations, and use the table in Excel. Is there an easier way to sum the parts?

Thanks,

John

win7, SW2011, quadro 580 with the latest driver.

 

[SnowCrash]

Try the balloon icon with the lightning flash. If it is not in your annotation property tab, add it.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2011 SP 2.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580

 

[weirDeveloper]

The balloon symbol with the lightning flash is the one that is greyed out in the annotations menu.

However, I've found that right-clicking on a drawing view, then clicking on annotations leads me to an auto-balloon symbol that works.

So, problem solved, but this quirkiness and other little things I've come across in SW often has me wondering whether it's me, the program or my hardware that's responsible.

 

[SnowCrash]

Maybe your BOM is not linked to the view properly. I could not get the autoballoon icon to go gray.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2011 SP 2.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580

 

[moon161]

It sees the weldment as one part. You might be able to autoballoon the weldment if you insert a cut list(insert, table ,cut list). You need a view the weldment itself to do this, instead of a view of the assy containing it.

 

[weirDeveloper]

Thanks for the help folks.

I've now got the balloons sorted, and the BOM - but one problem left. Some of the weldments are using home-drawn profiles. With these, no description shows up in the BOM.

I've gone back to the profiles (which are added to my library), and checked that they have a description in their properties. That is, clicked on File|Custom and added Description under property name and filled out the values. I've also selected Description in BOM quantities, and clicked OK. I'd expected these actions to add descriptions to my BOM or cut list, but no joy.

I have another piece, that as moon161 suggested, is seen just as one part. Insert|Table doesn't offer a cut list. I understand that I can't generate a BOM or cut list from an assembly (don't know why, seems a shame!) and this part contains two other parts. Can cut lists only be generated from a part containing no other parts? I've attached this file.

Thanks again.

 

[moon161]

Go through the weldment tutorial included w/ SWX. It covers dwgs and cut lists.

You need a view of the weldment only in the drawing. First go into your weldment, right click the cut list in the feature tree, select update.

Insert a view of the weldment only in your drawing, insert, table, cut list, select the view, OK.

Auto baloon uncheck ignore repeat instances, OK.

Insert view of assy in dwg, insert BOM, balloon, done.

 

[moon161]

Also, I use a different balloon style, like hex for the cut list.

I think you have to build the cut list as mentioned before.