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Toolbox

Toolbox

(OP)
Ok guys, grasping at straws here, but I don't have time to fiddle and I need to be able to give an answer by early tomorrow. How difficult, in your esteemed opinion, would it be to get SW to display custom part numbers and descriptions on toolbox parts in a custom BOM?

RE: Toolbox


The document liked by ctopher covers almost everything needed for setting up custom part numbers and descriptions for toolbox parts.  The effort involved in setting it up depends a bit on how you have been using it.  If you use more than one material or finish type, then you will have to enable creation of geometrically equal parts, and define a scheme for designating the different types.

We had been using the configurations directly out of the toolbox rather than creating a copy of the part.  Once we started adding configurations for the different material combinations, the size of the toolbox parts became large enough that the load times for them became objectionable.  This drove us to switch to using the copy parts option.  We use replace components to exchange the configuration toolbox parts which have no part number to the copied part with part number.  Annoying, but the part number of preexisting fasteners has to be sorted out sometime.

We created a folder structure on our server for our copied toolbox parts, and added it to the top of the list of design folders within SolidWorks.  The structure mirrors the one within the toolbox.  We look in the design library first and if the part that we want is not there we create one from the toolbox, set up its part number and description and file it away in there.

One thing that was not apparent to me from reading the above document is that the configuration properties determine what text shows up in the part number field of the BoM.  Under BoM options I selected: User Specified Name and entered: $PRP:"Number"-$PRP:"Revision" to link it to the model properties.

I probably spent a day or two setting up the toolbox to include material type and finish, enabling the copied parts, creating the directory structure and linking it to the design library.  About one half days worth of that was deciding naming conventions for the fasteners and custom properties.  This is an important step because it can be painful to change later.

Once things are set up, one of us spent a day or two creating and setting up the copies of some of the fasteners that we currently use.  This was definitely tedious, but is probably the most efficient way to create them.  It also gave the copied library sufficient mass to be useful.  It is a minor annoyance when we run into one that is not already in the library, but it also serves as a reminder of the value that we are getting from past efforts.

In short, it can be done.  It is not dead easy, requires some forethought and some grunt work.  I think that the effort has paid off for us.

Eric

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