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What does everyone use Composite Parts for?
Andre_Comella
Member Posts: 69 PRO
I feel like I'm missing something here, but basically every time I use composite parts they let me down. What I wanted and expected was that it would let me treat a group of bodies as a single part/body, even if they were disjoint. Instead it seems more like a way to make an assembly with group mates from within a part studio. Even with a closed composite part, the individual parts still act as separate bodies when I'm exporting, selecting from the graphics window, performing boolean operations, etc.
So what do other people do with this feature? Where is it helpful?
Answers
It is useful if you have components that are one item in a BOM, though they are made up of several parts inside, such as a ball bearing: You'd buy them in whole, with one item number, and not both the grooved rings, the seals, the cage, and all the balls separately. So you'd make that ball bearing a composite part before inserting it into your assembly. That works pretty nice.
Also, if you design multi-body parts that stay in their configuration 'forever', you'd make them a composite part as opposed to an assembly. An example for this would be a welded frame.
Composite parts are NOT meant to replace a boolean operation.
Mainly composite parts are used to simplify large assemblies and make them into a simpler part with only fewer materials. This is really helpful if you want to try to insert 3d models of circuits into your document since Circuits are usually made of many parts and are assemblies. So if you want to treat a group of bodies as a single part you can try to use the boolean tool in a part studio.
I use them every project for PCBA imports from the EE team. Outside of that, I don't think I've ever used it.
The ball bearing example above is a good one for mechanical parts.