Assembly Drawings, Configurations and Equations

This project I'm working on right now is going to be an interesting
task to try and do. I've got three carts. The difference in the the 3
carts is the height. That will cause me to have to create 3 sets of 12
parts out of the 46 that make up the whole cart. My boss wants 1 BOM
with the 3 models listed at the top. I have no idea how I'm going to
have to do this. What I'm proposing I do, since he wants to have all 3
models on 1 drawing, is to have each model on a separate sheet with
it's own BOM. I think it will be less confusing. So if you look at
sheet 1, you see an isometric view of cart 5724 and it's BOM. Sheet 2
will have an isometric view of cart 5728 and it's BOM, and so on. Then
sheets 4 through whatever will have any other weldment views and
sub-assembly views that the shop needs to actually build this cart.

Another problem I trying to deal with is, I have a lot of equations
driving this assembly. I set it up with a 3D sketch at the final
assembly that controls 4 different dimensions. By changing the value
of these 4 dim's, I'm able to rebuild the cart into a whole new cart.
This was done for future carts we made need to make. So my question
is, would it be wise to try and create configurations of the parts
that will change for the 2 new carts I need to make. And then also
make 2 new assembly configurations. Or do a "Save as..." of the
assembly and parts that will change and just create new parts that
way.

How will this affect all of my equations that I have set up?

 

Sounds similar to what we do here.

We may have a drawing that has all 3 carts on it and each one has a BOM
associated with it also on the drawing. Just lock the first one and then
manually position the others.

As far as the "Save as..." I definitely would go with the configurations.
That's a perfect example of the power and use of configs as that way you
don't keep generating multiple files that are all related but only differ by
a dimension change. You might also look at setting them up with design
tables as then it's very easy to add configs for new parts. Let me know if
you need help.

WT

 

Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to try and do.
Thanks, I'll take a look at 2004 PR1.