Referencing cut list information in assembly drawings and Onshape BOM

andy_colborn

Prefacing this with being only a couple weeks into actually using Onshape

I have a number of parts studios that use featurescripts to produce a cut list with information we want to show on PDF shop drawings. 

It's pretty straightforward to insert just the composite part created from the frame tool (etc) into a drawing and tag all the cuts to items in the cut list. But in lots of cases it makes more sense to show the parts in an assembly especially when the framed part is modeled in-context with other parts (see below).

Since we're showing a view of the assembly and not the composite part we can only seem to bubble with Onshape part/BOM information and not the information contained in the cut list (length, profile, etc.).




We also have lots of assemblies and nested subassemblies with various framed components inside them that we would like to see accurately in a big top-level BOM.

My questions is, whether it's possible to write the type of data you'd see in a cut list or custom table at the part studio level to a part's metadata so that it shows up in the BOM?

From there we could aggregate all the lengths when we pull a nested BOM. And we wouldn't have the problem of not being able to ID a cut length from an assembly view.

wout_theelen541

Hi, so I'm pretty new to OnShape as well but I ran into a similar problem. So if anyone thinks there's a better way to do this I would love to be proved wrong.
That being said I think the frame tool is pretty great for one off projects I think but it's difficult to get the meta data out of.
The way I got around this is just to create a configurable frame part and use that in the assembly.
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/19600/frame-tooling-2-0#latest

In your case if you create configurations for all the features you want (length, angle 1 and angle 2) you can insert those straight into an assembly or as derived parts in a part studio and use reference variables to drive the configuration. The information won't show up exactly as it would in a frame cut list but it should work for you.

tim_hess

I think you can specify which table the balloons are pulling their numbers from when labeling parts on a drawing. 

I haven't tested this, but what I would try having an assembly view that's linked to the BOM and then a second view with just the composite part linked to the cut list (probably on a second page).  To change the table reference, I think you right-click on the view and there's an option on the menu somewhere. 

tim_hess

Update: I did some testing with this. 

If you add a drawing view of your assembly, you can add a BOM table and have balloons reference the BOM table. Easy. 

Next, if you add another drawing view of just the composite part (pulled from the part studio) you can then add a cut list table. When you add balloons to the cut parts, they'll probably default to the BOM item number, but you can easily edit the callout and use the options to change the reference from the BOM to the CUT list. 

Personally, I would just add the cut list table and composite part views to a second page so that it's easy to see which balloons correspond with which table. Alternatively, you could add something to the balloon to indicate that is referencing the cut list. But, it is possible to make it all work on one sheet. 

andy_colborn

I wanted to close the loop on this since we worked out a solution. 

Essentially, we replaced our use of the Onshape built-in cutlist tool with a featurescript called Pretty cut list + properties (#299730) | Feature Studio 1 (onshape.com).

This featurescript had the advantage of doing a fractional conversion but also uses some setProperty functions that map attributes from the cut list to the actual parts.

We did some editing of the script to get things auto-filling out part descriptions mapping data to part properties in the formats we wanted. From there, you can drop a BOM into the drawings that shows cut lengths, profile data etc.

steven_van_luchene848

andy_colborn said:

I wanted to close the loop on this since we worked out a solution. 

Essentially, we replaced our use of the Onshape built-in cutlist tool with a featurescript called Pretty cut list + properties (#299730) | Feature Studio 1 (onshape.com).

This featurescript had the advantage of doing a fractional conversion but also uses some setProperty functions that map attributes from the cut list to the actual parts.

We did some editing of the script to get things auto-filling out part descriptions mapping data to part properties in the formats we wanted. From there, you can drop a BOM into the drawings that shows cut lengths, profile data etc.

Hi Andy, 

interesting solution proposed here? i've gone about it the same way allthough coding skills are sub par. :-)
I had the same challenge here, as the entire design uses several smaller frame elements assembled/ bolted toghether. and we use a single drawing with a flattened BOM.
All cutlengths should appear on final assembly drawing and more importantly should also be on the exported BOM table to ERP. You now have the lenght, profile type etc concatenated as text in the description field. I guess you could als have it in separate metadata/ property fields in numerical value as wel?