How to Question ...

Hello,
Is it possible to change the internal ID of a document. For example I
want to change a part from an assembly with another part (almost
identitical) without having to recreate the mates. The problem gets even
worse if the original part is the part from mold/cavity feature.
Is there a way to check/change that internal ID of the part document?
Thanks,
Ste

 

Why not just RMB on the old part in the assembly and choose Replace?
That will do what you want.

 

Hi,
To make the things clearer I'm trying to replace a molded part in an
assembly with cavity splits, cores, inserts and everything was
referenced to the original part. Now, after the replacement, almost all
of the feature manager tree is in red, all of the cavity features are
with errors, the same for the shut-off surfaces. Mates are easy to
recreate but I thought if I could change that internal ID I could save
the the rest.
Thanks anyway,
Stefan

 

That could be a big pain.

There is one possibility. One little used feature in SW is the ability
to name faces. If you were to name the faces of the original part used
to define the various cavity/shut off surfaces and then name the
corresponding faces on the new replacement part the same way you might
find that some or all of the red balls will go away.

 

I don't know if they changed this in newer versions, but it is as TOP
stated except in 2004 and earlier, I don't know about 2005 and up,
when you renamed the faces it didn't update the mates with the new
information, though if you renamed them in the first place the mates
would properly update to surfaces and edges with the same names in
replaced parts. I had created a macro to allow you to rename faces
edges and vertices by selecting them in a Base part and then selecting
the corresponding face in a subsequent part. But I haven't had much
use for it since it doesn't do anything for existing mates and
references.

Corey