Weldments - any way to suppress internal hollows?

I am planning on using weldments quite extensively. I will be
building structures using square tubing. Already, with what I consider
to be a simple structure, I am noticing significant delay in opening a
file. I am also running into challenges where I accidentally select
one of the internal faces or edges of the square tubing.

I figure the best solution to both of these issues is to suppress the
internal hollow. I know I can do things to suppress fasteners, but
haven't figured a way to suppress these internal hollows. If I had
made a new component, I could choose a name for those features I would
want to suppress. But, there doesn't seem to be any way to do this with
weldments.

Any ideas?

Joe Dunfee

 

Thanks for the reply. I was unaware of the option to turn off
selection of hidden edges... that will be a great help.


Regarding supressing internal hollows of weldment tube, I wonder if I
can play other tricks such as creating two different weldment profile
directories. Then change the names of those folders when I wanted to
switch between the detailed vs. simplified versions of the tubing.
However, I suspect that once a particular profile is used, it is copied
onto a new sketch on the drawing. So the original profile in the
weldment profiles directory is never refered to again... meaning that
this idea won't work.

Perhaps this can be addressed through programming [Visual basic?]. I
have never attempted to write any programs for SW, so perhaps you can
guide me whether this is a simpl or complex programming task. Using my
concept above of two sets of weldment profile directories, the VB
program can search for each weldment profile sketch, then erase and
insert the new profile. This ability may even already be partically
available in SW because you can choose different size tubing even after
you have created the weldment. The task is just one of automating the
substitution.

Joe Dunfee

 

If you're willing to make a new profile library (...

Perhaps I am misunderstanding how the weldment feature uses its
profile library. If I try to guess how the program is using it, I
would think that the feature inserts the sketch into the part, and then
uses the extrude feature by selecting the entire sketch (which defaults
to creating a hollow). Therefore I don't have the option of using the
weldment feature and making the hollow a separate feature from the boss
extrude. Am I correct?

Joe Dunfee

 

You would not need to create another profile, you just need to edit the
sketch of the weldment component and change the inner contour to
construction geometry. This will make the part solid, then when you
are ready to make it hollow again, you can change the segments back to
sketch geometry.

Jeff

 

Jeff wrote;

Since it is common for my weldments to have over 100 pieces, it is
important to change between the hollow and solid profiles
automatically. If I am understanding both of your ideas correctly (and
what SW can do) they are manual-only methods that wouldn't be pratical
for me.

However, you gave me an idea. If I can somehow label the internal
profile so that VB can recognize them, then I can use a simple routine
to convert them to construction geometry and back to regular lines when
I want that. I imagine there is some sort of internal number assigned
to each line, but to be consistant between different size profiles, I
would want the same label. Perhaps I can just set all the internal
profiles to be a specific color and use that information to identify
what lines to convert to construction lines.

Joe Dunfee

 

I am aware of the ability to create configurations using normal
parts. However, this is using the weldment feature... I don't think it
is possible to define a configuration in a profile template.

In order to create the configurations you are refering to, I must
edit each hollow individually to supress them and make them part of the
configuration. The weldment feature has limitations that don't allow
this to be automatically done as I create each weldment.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Joe Dunfee