something i've discouvered on split features and multibody parts

Hi guys,
I want to share with you a strange expiriance with solidworks 2007 sp2.2
x64:

Before a while i've created a solid part (lets call it "master part") and
splited it with the split feature using two planes of which the location is
controled in it with two configurations (lets call them default config and
non-default config).

When I created the split feature solidworks asks me if i want to save
seperate part files of each part of the split feature, so i saved them in 3
seperate part files which solidworks called "solid body 1, solid body 2,
solid body 3).
Now if I open any of these "solid body X" part files then they also have two
configurations (default and non-default) but only default is working the
other one has a red error mark on the derived body icon in the feature
manager tree!!.
So I went back to the master part file, switched to non-default
configuration, entered into the split feature again and pressed again the
"save all bodies" button.
Now I switched back to one of the "solid body X" part files and the
non-default configuration was now o.k. in addition to the default
configuration!!! as i wanted from the beginning.

So i guess the conclusion is that in the "save all bodies" button on the
split feature, solidworks will only save the current configuration status of
bodies in the resultant part files, and that one has to repeat this
procedure manually in order to achive this on all
configurations!.....strange isn't it? i would expect solidworks to go
through all configurations and all "solid body X" part files and to save
each status accordingly and automaticaly. wouldn't you too?

I will love to hear your thoughts on this,

Regards,
Gil

 

Gil,
Split Part-saving-bodies-as-files was not implemented well from the
beginning and it has been banned from my office for a variety of
reasons (and the configuration one wasn't one of them - I didn't know
that). So I can't tell you how to deal with the problem because I
have no experience 'putting lipstick on that pig'. I don't even know
if it is a pig anymore because we just...don't...use...it.

I can offer to forward your issue to folks at SWx who are interested
in fixing 'split part'. I'll try to do that tomorrow. I don't know if
it's a known issue, and I have been out of the loop on what's on the
agenda for '08 so who knows what will happen.

I can also offer you the stable way that I deal with 'master models'
below in this post
(something that is analyzed in Curvy Stuff V - the wrath of scotty,
part 2, available on our website - www.dimontegroup.com. Just look at
the tutorials tab in the middle of the left side of the page. FYI -
Due to a lot of traffic, we have to manually restrict downloads to
between 5PM and 5AM Central time U.S. Sorry if that doesn't work with
your schedule, but we need our bandwidth to service our customers and
do our job)

I, and it turns out, a lot of others, have individually developed a
more stable/predictable approach. We create the master model, then we
start new parts and insert the master model into those new parts
(insert>part) and use delete bodies (insert>features>delete body) to
remove the bodies we don't want in the child part. I have never run
into a problem with this approach, though to be fair I haven't much
production experience with 2007 sp 2.2.

The insert>part approach is maybe another 30 seconds worth of time
that will save you hours - or potentially days - worth of aggravation
and issues. I have never had a single issue with this approach.
Please consider it, and (as always) test it for yourself and report
back if you have any problems.

BTW, If I need to use the split part feature to split a body into two
bodies using a plane, that's fair game. I just don't save the bodies
to files - let the insert>part child part (or delete bodies features
in the master parts configurations) handle that differentiation.

Finally, be very careful of the show/hide status of the bodies that
are being split. This is a sneaky issue - if the bodies aren't shown
in the tree just above the split (rollback and show bodies, because
show/hide status is part of the tree history at least through early
versions of 2007) the body defined to be split is ignored. No warning,
no error.. just no results.

Let us know if any of this helps

Ed

 

Ed,
Thanks for your detailed advice. i'm allways glad to learn from expirianced
guyes like you what to use and how in solidworks . i will report in the
future how it goes for me regarding your alternate way to the "save bodies"
function in the split feature. it is interesting that your bypass system of
the "save all bodies" function which takes a few seconds more each time can
save a lot of time!! i'm allways surprised at what i can learn new on the
software which isn't written anywhere in the documentation, and for that i'm
thankfull.

Thanks,
Gil