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Hi All,

I'm currently working on a drawing pack that can be used by other engineers to get new products to production quicker. Basically, it's a set of generalised models/drawings that have global variables that the user can change to quickly output new drawings. The way it’s currently set up is you must go into each part and modify the driving equation. As you can imagine this isn't ideal. I've been researching a way to have it all driven from the assembly downwards. I've run into a couple issues.

1. If you have each sketch in every part undefined, and then edit the sketches in assembly to add relations to the primary component (in my case a rolled circular aluminium profile). When you copy tree, it loses this relation and it must be redone, which nullifies the effectiveness of this method.

2. If you tie the global variables to a text document, the link is lost again in copy tree. I haven't tested this fully I'm just going off other people's experiences. Let me know if I'm mistaken.

Essentially, I just want to create a model that requires the least amount of work possible to get it ready for production. I'm not too worried about the drawing as the custom properties/scale will need adjusting each time so that unavoidable.

If anyone has worked on something similar it would be great to hear your thoughts - Cheers

It's not a workflow I've used, but many people have extolled the virtues of having a sketch (or two) in the Assembly that drives all the Parts (so all the Parts reference the sketch).

Look into SSP and Master Sketch/Skeleton.
Need to "Copy Design" to get all the files and keep link.
https://www.cadforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=1546
https://www.goengineer.com/blog/solidwo ... -technique

Configulation in SW can help.

Also check out Drivework in SW.

Ok cool.

Glenn I tried that method but it lost the relation during copy tree. Cheers.

MacroEnjoyer wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 10:45 am Ok cool.

Glenn I tried that method but it lost the relation during copy tree. Cheers.

Maybe use Pack and Go instead?

I do this a lot, and usually it's the easiest way I have found to make assemblies that change size. One I did this on was for a door. I have a sketch in the top level assembly for the height and width of the opening the door must fit in. Using those 2 dimensions in that sketch everything else is derived.

You do have to use Pack & go to make a new top level assembly and parts to get new assemblies/parts to change equations over to the new main assembly level, or you got to do a bunch of replace parts/assemblies.

Copy tree is just pack & go but inside PDM, so i'm not sure what you mean. Also creating an assembly that can change size isn't the problem, its the loss of relation when using copy tree that is.

We don't use PDM so I don't know what copy tree is.

When I pack & go my assemblies I change the folder and renumber using the select/replace function to give the parts new part numbers (I do it from the drawing so the drawing sheets copy as well). Once I open the new assembly if I change a dimension on my master sketch it asks if the references should change over to the new assembly from the old one, I click yes and all the references are now associated to the new assembly. This is my work flow and it works for us.

Ok mate, ill give that a go. I thought the update references dialog was only keeping the link between models and drawings, not external files. I'll have a look.

TLDR - make sure copy tree gets all your files and that if you use Pack and Go with PDM, you save where you mean to.

Something I have noticed on copy tree, it seems to default to only selecting the files in the same folder, so I have had to manually force it to select other files so that I get all the files copied.

If you have PDM, be careful if you use pack and go. The most common reason I use pack and go is to copy all the files to a new name or location. I often will have to copy the files out to share with a customer. I accidently forgot to change the directory. Pack and go copied all my files into the directory that I was at. I didn't realize that was what happened until I tried to check my assembly in. For all the library parts that are in separate folder, I then had a copy in the project folder. I had to delete the new copies because they couldn't be checked in since I can only have one file with the same name (the file extension is part of the name).