Part numbers and duplicated parts in Part Studios

emagdalenaC2i

I would like to know your ideas about it.

Consider a model like the one in the image, in which several equal components have been designed in the same Part Studio


Then I can create an assembly, insert all the Part Studio and create all the required subassemblies

I can assign the same name, description and even Part number to all the equal parts, for example in the "Travesaño inclinado" parts. But:

• The BOM does NOT group the components with the same Part number, name or description and consider them as different components.

• The same happens when you insert the BOM in a drawing

• Last but not least, if you try to use the Release management Onshape default workflows with an automatic part number generation, then a lot of issues appear and you can not create the release candidate.

So, there are a few questions here:

1. Should I insert only single parts into the assembly and create arrays and replicas for the other instances?
2. Will it allow us in the future Onshape to group pieces with the same part number in BOM and the release manager?
   

What do you think?

brucebartlett

It might not be easy, but I believe part studio's need to be designed to have instances of parts, Ie. when copying, mirroring or patterning having the ability to able to tick a box to create instantiations which then will drop nicely into an assembly and BOM just works as expected not like @emagdalenaC2C 's example. However, with part studio instantiations I expect the part to be geometrically identical. 

*edit, I thought I was on another post, sorry* In the case of the OP grouping non-identical parts in CAD has never been easy, I think SolidWorks BOM's had a group by name or part number but you had to be very careful.  In this case, pretty sure you could make something work with OpenBoM or workaround as @john_mcclary posted.

john_mcclary

Right, OpenBOM allows you to group parts by name, I forgot about that.

I used it a few times before onshape bom... works pretty good actually

GWS50

I have had this issue recently and ended up inserting a single part and copying and pasting, then the BOM works as expected but it is time consuming and can get confusing. Being able to group 'same name' items would be great

emagdalenaC2i

I agree with you that the ideal option is that in a Part Studio the parts should be unique.

However, when designing for example a model like the one indicated, it is much easier to create all the parts (even several equal parts) in the same Part Studio.

During the design process some of these parts can be modified and have differences between them. For example, in the parts Pilar central, Pilar derecho and Pilar Izquierdo.

To use this ideal system, only with unique parts in an assembly, I have duplicated the Part Studio 1, and these are all the steps I had to do:

• Remove duplicate parts in the Part Studio

• Insert the Part Studio in an assembly and fix the part "Pilar central"
• Insert the symmetrical parts

First Big issue... There are no mirror feature in assemblies

So I have to insert and place the symmetrical parts one by one

• Then I can create a linear pattern to create a few instances of the existing parts

Second issue, there are not the option "Centered" in the assembly patterns

So I have to create 2 linear patterns instead of one

Third issue, there are no options in the patterns features (neither in the Part Studio nor in the assemblies) to eliminate a specific instance of a component. As the component indicated with the arrow below.


So, after a while, I have all the components assembled again.

And then... another issue.
When I try to create the subassemblies necessary for the production and mounting of the general assembly... The creation of subassemblies obviously crashes with the patterns created in the assembly



So, Do I have to create the subassemblies first and then create the general assembly with the above limitations?

michael_mcclain

I made some handrail sections, keeping as few parts in the part studio as possible, but for example, I had to add all posts in. I named the first instance of the post which would go into the assembly "h1". All following instances that were indentical I named "h1_inst".

I added the whole part studio into the assembly. I copied the "h1" post and fastened them to the "h1_inst" in the same position to replace them later. I used group and fastened to replace any "_inst" parts to create only many instances of one part number for the BOM. At the end, I deleted all the "_inst" parts.

Not the easiest workaround but if you know it well them it goes by quickly. It's best done if there won't be any downstream changes to the design. Of course, you can use OpenBOM to group parts with the same part numbers instead.

owen_sparks

That is bit of a ball ache!

How about keeping all the parts from the full partstudio in the assembly , but set the "Exclude from BOM" parameter for all the duplicates, and then do a copy of the instances directly on top of each other.  It's a bodge but the instance count would be right, and it would look OK on the screen.

Owen S.

john_mcclary

Yea, the group mate in that case seems very volatile to any part edits. Seeings how group will hold the relative position of the part's studio origin.

Has someone started an IR for combine in BOM yet?

lougallo

Mirror will come to assemblies but instantiation of like components would need to be present for weldmwnts as well. We realize this workflow is conmon and wlll address it. Todsy unsing in content assembly modeling is the best solution today to maintain the unique part instancing. 

michael_mcclain

lougallo said:

Mirror will come to assemblies but instantiation of like components would need to be present for weldmwnts as well. We realize this workflow is conmon and wlll address it. Todsy unsing in content assembly modeling is the best solution today to maintain the unique part instancing. 

Excellent! This is very useful and necessary functionality for us in the steel industry and for those building wood frame structures.

On a side note...
Slow down when typing ha. It happens to the best of us in a rush

emagdalenaC2i

lougallo said:

Mirror will come to assemblies... 

I know... I believe that SolidWorks added the mirror components in assemblies in the 2001 release!!!

So, it took 8 years to add this feature in SolidWorks (since 1993, the year in which the company was created. The first release was in 1995)

So you still have some time ... but this time users can not wait 8 years 

lougallo said:

...but instantiation of like components would need to be present for weldmwnts as well. We realize this workflow is conmon and wlll address it.

Lucas_Kuhns

An assembly mirror would have made this workflow a lot easier. You can vote on this improvement request here: https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/5763/mirror-feature-for-assembly-workflow/p1

lucas_johnson223

@emagdalenaC2i, I don't know if you're still looking for an answer for this, but I think the Frame and associated Cut List features would help you out immensely!

https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/frame_cut_list.htm

emagdalenaC2i

Hi @lucas_johnson223

It is a very old post. Both Onshape and my company C2i, which is a partner / reseller of Onshape, have improved a lot since then and we continue to improve step by step.

It's very interesting to look back and see those improvements so thanks for reminding me of this post.

• We provide our Onshape customers with a library of over 3,100 profile types

• Our FeatureScript Perfiles2 improves the performance of the Beam FeatureScript by making frame design faster and easier
• Also, FeatureScript Perfiles2 was updated several months ago making it compatible with cut lists. Beam FeatureScript does not support cut lists. So our clients are the only ones who have managed to transfer their old designs directly to cut lists.
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuPKr0hi6sg

We have also improved some other related FeatureScripts:

• C2i FS Perfiles de Aluminio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50ACTF9VrDY

• C2i FS Recortar Perfiles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r3xBpVD-68

And we've added some very cool new FeatureScripts:

• C2i FS Recortar Estructuras

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WvZMciLjgA

• C2i FS Calcular Limites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVgNZH4IrHk

• C2i FS Establecer Propiedades

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te1eGEg8aoc

As well as other FeatureScripts and tools...

Here you can see an example with some of the FeatureScripts that we provide to our clients: A completely parameterized roller conveyor

Try to change any parameter and look at the BOM