Chevy? Tsk, tsk tsk.

"Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."

Is there some reason you did not want to document a motor design that would actually be of some benefit to mankind?

But if you insist, here is where you really want to start : http://www.ncrs.org/

Crashj 'rather be towed in a Ford than pushed in a Chevy' Johnson

Well depending on how the models turned out, and how I get the dims to create the models would really determine whether or not I shared it. Honestly though, I would be willing to share it if someone wanted a copy of it. Especially those that point in the right direction just as you have .

Thank you for the site and Happy New Year!

Scott Baugh, CSWP
George Koch Sons,LLC
Evansville, IN 47714
sjb@kochllc.com

Scott, I'm afraid I can't help you with the Chevy prints but I was wondering wether you and everyone else could help me. I've just started a solid works model of a 3.5 litre quad cam V8 similar to an IRL engine with some of my own design input. I'm planning on modelling similar to you in that all parts will be parameter driven to allow easy design changes. I run SW2000 and my problem is that I can't figure out how to make the dimensions of one part drive the dimensions of another part without editing them in the associated assembly. Is this possible with a design table or other method?

any help would be appreciated, good luck with the big block

Oliver Manhire

engin_eer@hotmail.com

You object to having to :
"make the dimensions of one part drive the dimensions of another part (by) editing them in the associated assembly."
Gee, I thought that was how we are supposed to do it? - ie relate the dimensions of one part to another in an assembly drawing. Have I been doing it wrong all these years?

BTW, isn't IRL going to the .15 liter Briggs & Stratton next year?

Crashj 'slower than carts' Johnson

Oliver,

To have one part drive another parts geometry is called in-contexting. I'm not going in-context my assembly or parts. I plan to have each component being it's own boss. Each part will have a DT controlling it's dimensions for example bore oversize. There will be a DT at the assembly stage and when I change the bore size of the block (which will be picked from a config name in the cells) I will have the proper configs change according to what size block is desired. This makes for a complicated DT but it's nothing different then what I'm doing now.

But if you want to in-context your assembly. Your going to have to edit each part at the assembly stage and either place your dims or add your relationships to your sketches, planes or other part geometry.

I hope that helps,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
George Koch Sons,LLC
Evansville, IN 47714
sjb@kochllc.com

Thanks for all that guys, I'll start thinking about in-contexting and yes I think IRL are looking for a lawn mower manufacturer as a competition sponsor

Ollie

Oliver,

You can drive multiple part paramters via the API if you know how to program in VB.  I have in fact done this wirh an entire vehicle chassis (sans the engine and powertrain) I will admit that I was FORCED to do it that way but it worked well.  I does however go against the grain of the "top down" assembly approach where you make use of in context referencing (on eof SWX's big benefits)  If you did for some reason want to do something like this, you can have a table of the SW parameters in an axcel spreadsheet and use this tagle to drive the dimensions of each individual component sequentially and rebuild them then finally bring up the master assembly and rebuild.  It becomes quite involved depending on the amount of dimensions you wish to drive for example we wound up having to use an oravle dbase becuase we had somewhere in the area of 14000 variables, and many equations as well.

So the question is....how deep do you want to go!  I'd highly recommend that you consider using the In-context relationships, and equations if necessary between parts in the assembly first.  If you find that you need more than that, then you can explore the API alternative.

Regards
Jon

Next time I will spell check when I write a post at 4am!

:)

My Opinion,

Why use API when you can use a DT to control your assembly just as well? A DT can be programmed to use different components depending on a single varaible. For that matter the DT could be a completely external Excel Sheet, yet it could still be able to control the model from the outside.

I understand VBA better than VB. I find that while using VBA (or Excels VB) the use of an excel Sheet and the Forms gives me more options for placing information or Data than VB does. In the cells I can place formula's to help figure data, I can program buttons on my sheet also. I can make a userform like you would in VB and control it the same way.

The only draw back to VBA vs VB is that VBA is just little limited in certain areas than VB is, but I have yet to run into a case where I found a limitation between the two.

Everything I described above can used as an embedded DT in SW.

Check this site I found:
http://geocities.com/aaronblood/menu.html
Check out the Fun & Games using Excel...this is really neat.

Cheers,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
George Koch Sons,LLC
Evansville, IN 47714
sjb@kochllc.com

Oliver,
I may be way of track here but maybe this will help.

You can drive your part dimension from a assembly spread sheet.  There is an  excell utility out on SolidWorks website under the 3D Modeling Liabrary, API, Modeling Utilities.  Here is the description as it reads on their site...Excel To SolidWorks Link Template - Allow users to easily link cells in Excel to dimensions in SolidWorks. Also to allow users to extract mass property info from SolidWorks, and place values in Excel.  In a nut shell you can drive any of your parts dimensions from the assembly level with this spread sheet. You can set up formulas or simply put in a new value. I have directed two other people to this utility and they have had great success with it.  It has very simple instructions on how to use it.  

If you do not have subscription support you will not have access to download the utility. If this is the case and this sounds like something you can use I would be more than happy to email it to you.    

BBJT CSWP

Well Like I always say, there is more than one way to skin a cat, I was using the vb and excel as an example, I was using Java, active-x, and oracle as a web based tool for model and assembly control,  what it boils down to is what are you comfortable with, and what you want to accomplish.

You have some very good Ideas though Scott

ciao
Jon

BBJT, I tried the XL SW link template and it is so easy to create links. But I tried rebuilding a part more than once and it came up with an error about the object(the part file) not being defined. I tried creating links to more than one part file in the same xl sheet and the same rebuild error came up.

Has anybody tried this thing and fixed the bugs?, I'm not a programmer.

Thanks for your help

Oliver Manhire

When I used this spresd sheet I was using SW2000.  I have 2000 and 2001PLus on my system.  I would me more than glad to test it out again.  What version of SolidWorks are you running?

BBJT CSWP

When I used this spresd sheet I was using SW2000.  I have 2000 and 2001PLus on my system.  I would me more than glad to test it out again.  I will see if I can recreate the problem you are having.

BBJT CSWP

No worries, it wasn't quite an error, it seems that you need to have all of your linked part files open at the same time ever if you aren't actually working with them at that point in time. I'm guessing the program needs all parts open to check for parts that need rebuilding due to any changes you make.

This program works like a dream and I highly recomend it, although my pentium 100 is going to crap itself when my parts list starts growing!

Oliver Manhire

Message for BBJT.

I have been reading the messages between you and Oliver Manhire. I would be very grateful if you could email the 'Excel to Solidworks Link Template' to me. I have been looking for a way to insert relations into assemblies so that I do not have to keep going back and changing the dimensions of other components.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Scoobystu,
What is you email address?  I will send it to you from my hotmail account.  Please do not reply to the email for I very rarely check it.  I use it solely for sending outside of the company.  Please post back here if you have any questions or comments.

BBJT CSWP