Mirroring a can of worms!
Mirroring a can of worms!
(OP)
Well, actually opening a can of worms.
I'm working on a fact finding mission. We are struggling with a best practice in our company as it relates to mirroring parts.
Some will mirror a body in a part and some will mirror the part in an assembly. Some say, "What does it matter?" That's well and good until it has to be made. To me, there's a whole realm of control issues that occur here.
Let's consider a sheet metal part.
1. In a part, some may mirror the body for rh/lh parts. All well and good until one part has round holes and another has square holes. I know, same but different. To me that is a totally different part. Also, now you have to wrestle with configurations and flat patterns, blah, blah....
2. Some will mirror the part in assembly. "It's too many files to keep track of..." others argue. Is it? Compared to wrestling with configurations? What about when it's the round hole, square hole argument? Then what?
How about rebuild time, references, mates, configuration calling and any other thing that can be quirky in SolidWorks?
Everyone uses SolidWorks differently. How does your company approach things? Do you have general rules? Is it case by case? Or do things just run amuck?
I'm working on a fact finding mission. We are struggling with a best practice in our company as it relates to mirroring parts.
Some will mirror a body in a part and some will mirror the part in an assembly. Some say, "What does it matter?" That's well and good until it has to be made. To me, there's a whole realm of control issues that occur here.
Let's consider a sheet metal part.
1. In a part, some may mirror the body for rh/lh parts. All well and good until one part has round holes and another has square holes. I know, same but different. To me that is a totally different part. Also, now you have to wrestle with configurations and flat patterns, blah, blah....
2. Some will mirror the part in assembly. "It's too many files to keep track of..." others argue. Is it? Compared to wrestling with configurations? What about when it's the round hole, square hole argument? Then what?
How about rebuild time, references, mates, configuration calling and any other thing that can be quirky in SolidWorks?
Everyone uses SolidWorks differently. How does your company approach things? Do you have general rules? Is it case by case? Or do things just run amuck?
Christopher Zona - Product Designer
Loretto, Ontario






RE: Mirroring a can of worms!
The complaint about having too many part to keep track of is laziness IMO.
Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP4.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Mirroring a can of worms!
Our practice is to mirror a part at the point of greatest commonality. The base part will have a configuration that says "Base Config" and then the config for the finished part is named "Left-hand" or whatever is appropriate. The mirrored part, for consistency, will have its default configuration renamed "Right-hand" (or whatever is appropriate). These Left and Right configs then get their unique features. Both part files are saved to their separate part numbers.
- - -Updraft.
RE: Mirroring a can of worms!
RE: Mirroring a can of worms!
Mirroring in an assembly? MAYBE for quick concept work, never for production parts.
I also agree with not referring to 'left', 'right' or any other direction in part descriptions - for our work at least what is right in one installation may be left (or even up, etc) in another.
RE: Mirroring a can of worms!
If you use mirroring to generate new parts, you must tabulate your drawing so that you have unique part numbers.
The real discussion here is tabulation of drawings. Where I work, our PDM administrators discussed tabulation. Since they could not come up with a simple rule for it, they banned the practise. I am frequently frustrated by this.
You tabulate either to save drafting time, or to communicate explicitly that a bunch of parts are mostly identical.
For example, if sheet metal parts are left hand/right hand, the fabricator should be able to punch two identical flat layouts. I have generated a drawing for a set of steel angles each of which had the same hole pattern at the ends. A couple of them had a couple of holes in the middle. Otherwise, only the lengths varied.
If you are saving drafting time, you have to balance the time saved in drafting, to the time wasted by production trying to figure your drawing out.
RE: Mirroring a can of worms!
Because lets not forget showing opposite hands to as-drawn parts saves fabrication/manufacturing time just as using mirroring electronically. :)