Derived configurations

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for a detailed explanation for the subject of derived
configurations, besides the one that appears in the solidworks
documentation. Can somebody in this NG point me to any WEB page which
contains detailed info with actual examples and maybe also example files
that i can download and see? I find the SW documentation on this subject
unsufficiant, so this could help me a lot.

Thanks,
Gil

 

Or you could just ask here.

 

well........the problem is that i don't understand exactly what the
difference is between a derived configuration to a normal one besides
that the documentation says clearly that all changes to parent
configuration will propagate to child configuration. but what does
this mean? if i make a change to parent config it propagates to child
config and vice versa! but my logic says that only a parent config can
change his child config and that the opposite can't happen. so if try
to change a feature which were defined in the parent config, within
the child config, solidworks should stop me and prevent that kind of
change.

To make thing short..........i'm just confused! i dont understad what
is exactly hapening and why thi happens and somthing else.

Thanks,
Gil

 

Individual parameters in the derived configurations can have the link to
the parent configuration severed. If a parameter is set to "this
configuration" it will not update or be updated the parent configuration.
If the parameter is set to "link to parent configuration" then changes will
be propagated.

This is handy for when you have two closely related configurations with
minor differences. For example, I have a simplified assembly config with
fasteners suppressed. I have an inspection configuration which is dirived
fro mteh simplified configuration. In addition to al lthe fasteners being
suppressed, other components are suppressed to further simplify the drawing
views for inspection. So, when new fasteners are added, I only suppress
them in one config, and the dirived config gets the changes also.

 

Dale, i'm sorry, but i feel realy stupid asking this: i've tried to
use derived configs myself, and when i change a dimension in a child
config's feature, then the change propagates to its parent! i thought
it supposed to happen only when the change comes from the other
direction (from the parent config to the child config - one way path
of update!) . i'm surely missing here something fundemental or else i
don't know what......

 

Dale, i'm sorry, but i feel realy stupid asking this: i've tried to

When you change the dimension, make sure it is set to "this configuration"
(or "specify configuration"). I don't alway get it right myself. I don't
use it often enough.

 

Dale, I must say that my attempted use of Derived Configs confused me
when I tried it several times, got unexpected results and then just
avoided Derived Configs, because I didn't have time to delve into the
issue.

Bo

 

O.K. Bo, thanks for confirming this. so i it turns out that it's not
just me banging my head against the wall

 

I'm confused. I just tried a simple part file where I created a default
config, and then a derived config under that. If I change a dimension while
in the derived config and say to change that config only, then that's what
it does. If I say to change all configs, then it does. If I go to the
parent (default) config and make a change to that config, then it changes
that one as well as the derived one.

Everything seems to working properly. Did I miss something? SW2007 SP3.0

WT

 

Same thing here....derived configs work pretty much as expected. The
only thing is it can get quite complex to manage all the differences
if you have lots of configs. A design table makes it easier and it
supports derived configs.