Link To Thickness - tip

Hey y'all,

Discovered a nice little thing the other day that I thought I'd share,
some of you will no doubt already know and some of you may not:

If you link a dimension value (such as the thickness of a shell) to
the name 'thickness' then suddleny the tick-box appears in the boss
extrude/cut dimension, as for sheet-metal.

Also, linked values can be linked to in the document properties
dialogue - I didn't know that either until the other day!

Hope you're all having fun!

Lee Bazalgette
CSWP

 

Another thought to go along with that is that you can have your part
template set up with a variable called "thickness" and then you will always
have that option without going through the link process.

WT

 

Hi Wayne - thanks for that tip. However, when I try to write
"thickness"=2 into the equations folder for a global variable, it says
the equation is invalid. If I spell it "thicknes" it's ok - is that a
big or something (2007 SP0)?

 

Ok, here's what I have discovered. Apparently you can't directly type in
"Thickness" as a variable since it appears that it's a reserved word for a
linked value. So what you have to do is start a sheet metal part. This
will insert the "Thickness" variable for you as a linked variable. Then
double-click the thickness value in the graphics area and unlink it. Ctrl-Q
to basically release that variable, delete all the sheet metal features and
the sketch, and then save as a part template. The variable should still be
there and valid. I have tried this in SW2006 & 2007, but not 2008.

WT

 

I don't know those answers. I remember Matt posting a study that in his
instance, up to surface was a faster rebuild than through all. Probably
because it only has to go so far and not look to see if anything is out
there in space, which if true, then link to thickness might achieve the same
benefit. I generally just use through all because then if faces change, I
don't lose that reference. Sounds like some serious testing of this would
be in order.

WT