Newbie - Confusion with part and subassemblies references

Hi there

I'm working with SW 2005 for few weeks and I think that it's great piece
of software. I have learned lot of things, but now I have encountered
something that is killing me. In short, I'm creating cabinets for
kitchen and I have problem in referencing subassemblies. Here is what I do:

I created cabinet assembly which consist of two parts: frame and legs.
Then I create new assembly witch represents kitchen space. In kitchen
assembly I inserted cabinet subassembly two times. Now I want to be
able to change dimension (e.g. width) of only one cabinet in order
to adjust it to available space. Problem is when I change dimension
of one cabinet it's propagated to the second one.

I tried to resolve problem in way that I used "Save as"
for initial cabinet assembly in order to create independent
copy. File structure was like this:

Kithcen\Kitchen.sldasm

Kitchen\Cabinet_1\Cabinet_1.sldasm
Kitchen\Cabinet_1\Frame.sldprt
Kitchen\Cabinet_1\Leg.sldprt

Kitchen\Cabinet_2\Cabinet_2.sldasm
Kitchen\Cabinet_2\Frame.sldprt
Kitchen\Cabinet_2\Leg.sldprt

I also make sure that each cabinet assembly points to parts in
it's own directory. When I opened each part separately, I could
change their dimensions independently. Problem is when I insert
Cabinet_1 and Cabinet_2 in kitchen assembly and change dimension
of one cabinet: dimension of second one is changed also! It seems
that both cabinet assemblies are referencing the same parts
although their parts are separated in different directories.

What I'm I doing wrong ?

As workaround I found that for each new cabinet I also
need to create new name for Frame and Leg part, regardless
that they are in different directory. I don't like it
because I have to do it manually (open old assembly,
Save as, copy old parts to new directory, rename them,
replace old parts in cabinet assembly with new ones.....).
Isn't there better way to solve this (e.g. cloning of
assembly with all it's references)?

How would you approach this scenario?

Best regards,

Ivan

 

You need to get to grips with 'configurations' - within the help
manual.

The 'Cabinet' has to have two have 2 configs and then the Frame and
Legs have to have 2 configs .

Then Cabinet (config A )would have Frame (config 1) & leg ( config a1)

while Cabinet (Config B) would have Frame(config 2) and leg(config b2)

Kitchen then would have in it Cabinet (1) and Cabinet(2) which is the
same assembly but in different configurations.

It all better explained in the Help Menus, but just proceed with
caution as having multiple configurations and cross referanced parts
can cuse headaches later. It just comes with experiance.

TTFN

Jonathan

 

Problem with configs is that I don't know in advance how many copys of
cabinet assembly will be made. I will try SW Explorer, as mentioned bellow.

Thx.
Ivan

 

When you need another version you right click on the asm icon in the
Feature manager tree and <add Configuration>. Then you have to do the
same for any parts in the new configuration that are different or
change any Mates you want etc.

However Dale's way is more robust if you have simple parts and don't
need to change things in the future.

Anyway - as you are new to SW - there are many ways of acheiving the
same result, and each person over time finds their preferance. Just
keep you sense of humour as you will need it


Jonathan