Weight Calculation Macro

I am looking for a macro that will calculate the weight of a sheet
metal part. The SW Mass property subtracts any hole cutouts I have
from the overall weight. I need to calculate the weight of the piece
before any cutouts happen. Basically a (length x width) x lbs/ft in-
the-flat calculation. This will give me the weight of the actual
material consumed, rather than the weight of the finished product. Is
there anything out there that can do this?

Thanks in advance.
Mark

 

I'm looking for something more automated than this. If one of our
engineers forgot to get the weight in the beginning, he'd have to
suppress all of his cutouts, get the mass then unsuppress everything
again. It would be nice to just push a button at any time in the
creation process and get the total material usage, put it into a
custom property which can then be exported into DBWorks and finally
our MRP system. But if I can't get something like this, then your
idea is probably the simplest route.

Thanks

 

When making the sheet metal part I'd say make a config pre-cutouts (do
this after making all bends and before you start making cutouts).
Then add all the cutouts under the 2nd config. Then just switch to
the one config and do the mass prop, or...

You could also then have that massprop config in your drawing (hidden)
with a note linked to that hidden view calling for the PRP$"SW-mass"
prop (or whatever it is). That way you can automate the info into
your sheet with minimal additions to your part, and it will auto
update on any part changes.

Through a macro it'd be a lot trickier, when you can do the same thing
just as easily by just adding a config at your split point of adding
cutouts/holes.

You can use a macro to auto add the new config, and do a call of all
features (feature numbers), then call the names for each number

Similar to the below, just for feature names/count, and instead of
setting a property, supress under the new config:
***********************
OptionCompare Text 'sets string compare to be case insensitive
CustomCount = CurrentDoc.GetCustomInfoCount2("")
CustomNames = CurrentDoc.GetCustomInfoNames2("")

For j = 0 To CustomCount - 1
CustomName = CustomNames(j)
If StrComp(CustomNames(j), "DateCompleted") = 0 Then
CurrentDoc.CustomInfo2("", CustomNames(j)) = Properties(0)
***************************

Hope that gets you in the right direction. Check the API help file
for the suppress/add config calls.

-James

 

Oh, and after doing the call, I'd say compare it against Cut* & Hole*
to find all cuts and holes to suppress.