Assembly Configurations - managing mates

APD

I love the new assembly configs.  However managing the mates between configs is a little awkward. (or more than likely, I have picked an awkward workflow and there is a better way I've not discovered yet) 

I have a configured assembly with 2 configs. (a short and a long ).  Only difference between them is the length. (600mm & 900mm), and the longer has some extra LED boards and screws.  

I like to use the replicate tool to place the screws.  All the screws and their mates added in one click! Magic!








It starts to get messy when I add the extra screws on the latter (longer). Skip back to the former (shorter) and (deep breath)......   

... there's all these extra screws that need to be suppressed and their mates need to be suppressed and the suppression state for the extra screws need to be configured and the suppression state for the screw mates need to be configured and this is all adding to the config table which becomes very unwieldy and then I'm told I need to add a third even longer configuration and I want to cry!

What if...

I could bung all the extra screws with their mates in a Folder (in the assembly tree) and then configure the suppression state of the Folder?

NeilCooke

Folders would be ideal, agreed. In the meantime, those screws look like they are in some kind of "linear pattern"?

NeilCooke

Folders would be ideal, agreed. In the meantime, those screws look like they are in some kind of "linear pattern"?

APD

You're correct. They do repeat (every 5 screws or so per LED board). So I could set up the pattern and simply configure the pattern instance integers!  Great idea, I'll try that. Thanks Neil

Cris_Bowers

NeilCooke said:

Folders would be ideal, agreed. In the meantime, those screws look like they are in some kind of "linear pattern"?

This is why we need assembly feature based patterns. For now it's either replicate or manually match the part pattern to the feature pattern. How nice would it be to have the screws automatically be updated to match the hole pattern if it were to change?

NeilCooke

Cris_Bowers said:

How nice would it be to have the screws automatically be updated to match the hole pattern if it were to change?

It would be very nice.