Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
(OP)
Hi,
Playing around with BOM tables for the first time. The tables show up fine, but there are no balloons showing in my drawings. I can add balloons one at a time, but I've got lots of pieces - I want auto balloons. Auto balloons is jst greyed out.
Tried help and read all the balloon-related threads here. Clicked away at show annotations.
My drawing consists of weldments, with many of the parts being the same profile. I'd expected it would be dead easy to sum the lengths of parts that all have the same profile. I see I can add equations, and use the table in Excel. Is there an easier way to sum the parts?
Thanks,
John
win7, SW2011, quadro 580 with the latest driver.
Playing around with BOM tables for the first time. The tables show up fine, but there are no balloons showing in my drawings. I can add balloons one at a time, but I've got lots of pieces - I want auto balloons. Auto balloons is jst greyed out.
Tried help and read all the balloon-related threads here. Clicked away at show annotations.
My drawing consists of weldments, with many of the parts being the same profile. I'd expected it would be dead easy to sum the lengths of parts that all have the same profile. I see I can add equations, and use the table in Excel. Is there an easier way to sum the parts?
Thanks,
John
win7, SW2011, quadro 580 with the latest driver.






RE: Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2011 SP 2.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580
RE: Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
However, I've found that right-clicking on a drawing view, then clicking on annotations leads me to an auto-balloon symbol that works.
So, problem solved, but this quirkiness and other little things I've come across in SW often has me wondering whether it's me, the program or my hardware that's responsible.
RE: Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2011 SP 2.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580
RE: Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
RE: Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
I've now got the balloons sorted, and the BOM - but one problem left. Some of the weldments are using home-drawn profiles. With these, no description shows up in the BOM.
I've gone back to the profiles (which are added to my library), and checked that they have a description in their properties. That is, clicked on File|Custom and added Description under property name and filled out the values. I've also selected Description in BOM quantities, and clicked OK. I'd expected these actions to add descriptions to my BOM or cut list, but no joy.
I have another piece, that as moon161 suggested, is seen just as one part. Insert|Table doesn't offer a cut list. I understand that I can't generate a BOM or cut list from an assembly (don't know why, seems a shame!) and this part contains two other parts. Can cut lists only be generated from a part containing no other parts? I've attached this file.
Thanks again.
RE: Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
You need a view of the weldment only in the drawing. First go into your weldment, right click the cut list in the feature tree, select update.
Insert a view of the weldment only in your drawing, insert, table, cut list, select the view, OK.
Auto baloon uncheck ignore repeat instances, OK.
Insert view of assy in dwg, insert BOM, balloon, done.
RE: Wah! I want balloons! Automatically
I think you have to build the cut list as mentioned before.