Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.

First time visiting? Here are some places to start:
  1. Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
  2. Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
  3. Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
  4. Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.

If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.

is there a way to automatically set material to all your designed parts?

kees_bijkerkees_bijker Member Posts: 84 ✭✭

My question is about material designation. Is there a way to do this as a global setting before you start designing your parts?

For instance if you will make something with your 3d printer you know before hand that all your printed parts will be ABS for example. You know all your brass inserts are brass, like wise all your screws and bolts are steel.

Right now I am having to remember to assign the materials while you created the parts. If you forget, which is easilly done, you will get your warning that some parts do not have any material designated to them, and your mass properties will be unreliable.

Would be helpful if you could set a default material for all your part studios, unless overridden by an imported part with materials already designated.

Tagged:

Best Answer

  • nick_papageorge073nick_papageorge073 Member, csevp Posts: 839 PRO
    edited November 28 Answer ✓

    There is not a way to do it by default.

    A couple things that might make it easier:

    -You can select multiple parts at once in the part list (inside a part studio) and assign the material to all of them at once.

    -In the assembly, open up the BOM table and add a column for material There, you can quickly see if any parts are missing material. You can also add the material directly there in the BOM table (if the part is contained in the same document, rather than linked from another document).

    -For common hardware, the HW built into OS has the mass properties already set.

Answers

  • nick_papageorge073nick_papageorge073 Member, csevp Posts: 839 PRO
    edited November 28 Answer ✓

    There is not a way to do it by default.

    A couple things that might make it easier:

    -You can select multiple parts at once in the part list (inside a part studio) and assign the material to all of them at once.

    -In the assembly, open up the BOM table and add a column for material There, you can quickly see if any parts are missing material. You can also add the material directly there in the BOM table (if the part is contained in the same document, rather than linked from another document).

    -For common hardware, the HW built into OS has the mass properties already set.

  • kees_bijkerkees_bijker Member Posts: 84 ✭✭

    Shame, I feel it would make some instances of your workflow a bit easier. But ok, it is what it is. I shall continue the way I did and just must not forget to do it at part creation stage.

  • martin_kopplowmartin_kopplow Member Posts: 524 PRO

    Yepp, a default material woud be useful. Some people use structural steel 95% of the time. Fasteners bring their own anyway.

  • kees_bijkerkees_bijker Member Posts: 84 ✭✭

    Maybe we should suggest it as a request feature!

  • eric_pestyeric_pesty Member Posts: 1,926 PRO

    I think what might be most useful would be a "part template" system.
    That way you could apply sets of properties to parts in one go, maybe even just an extension of "categories" to including some data (instead of just the fields) and then you would just need to be able to set one to use by default…

  • martin_kopplowmartin_kopplow Member Posts: 524 PRO

    Sounds reasonable. There is one dangerous point here, though: A default part property could accidently be assigned to a part not meant to. It would be harder to catch a misassigned material than a part with material definition missing. The cost of comfort … ;0)

Sign In or Register to comment.