Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
(OP)
Hello John! This is a spin-off topic from NX10 thread.
Machining after assembly is a very frequent scenario in real life manufacturing. Typically assemblies are machined after welding, but not exclusively. Currently NX allows to model this situation through use of body promotion (either direct promotion or Assembly Cut feature) or WAVE linking of body. I have no problem with either scenarios, although all of them have some downsides here and there. The bigger problem is with users, especially less qualified ones, who often find it difficult to quckly grasp the technique. Therefore I'm quite interested - is existing approach going to be changed in the future? Are there plans to implement the solution which would allow modeling operations on the component-level bodies directly from the assembly level, without need to link or promote them beforehand? Is this possible at all with current architecture and geometric kernel of NX?
Machining after assembly is a very frequent scenario in real life manufacturing. Typically assemblies are machined after welding, but not exclusively. Currently NX allows to model this situation through use of body promotion (either direct promotion or Assembly Cut feature) or WAVE linking of body. I have no problem with either scenarios, although all of them have some downsides here and there. The bigger problem is with users, especially less qualified ones, who often find it difficult to quckly grasp the technique. Therefore I'm quite interested - is existing approach going to be changed in the future? Are there plans to implement the solution which would allow modeling operations on the component-level bodies directly from the assembly level, without need to link or promote them beforehand? Is this possible at all with current architecture and geometric kernel of NX?
Industry creates wealth!





RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
And while we are at it, I have a question regarding issue of double weight of assembly if WAVE links are used.
Eventually I came up with the following solution (provided that Advanced Assemblies license is present): components, bodies from which are WAVE-linked to the level of the assembly, are set as non-geometric. Then component group is defined which includes all components except those which contain UG GEOMETRY = NO attribute. This component group is then set in the Advanced weight management window, negating the extra weight and resluting in correct calculation of the cached weight. Would you call this a good practice? Maybe some better way is present?
The only issue I found with advanced weight management is that it is effective only for single level of the assembly. In other words, if ASSY1 is set up to exclude certain components from weight calculation through componet groups, it will work only for the ASSY1. If I create ASSY2 and include ASSY1 into it as a sub-assembly, the components invisible by ASSY1's weight calculation will again be visible by ASSY2's. Therefore, I need to set up same component groups at every assembly level, which works good but requires extra attention. Is this as designed?
Industry creates wealth!
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
Other reason can be that promotions are a bit less than perfect if you need to replace a component which is the parent for promotion. Especially if machining occurs on multiple levels in the cascading assemblies - and I came across cases like this. If you need to replace a component, WAVE is great because link stands and you only have to re-parent it. But on the whole, promotions are good. Especially if users understand them well and use accordingly.
Industry creates wealth!
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
This takes care of the weight, and also prevents loading unnecessary data. If using Teamcenter and Vis, it also ensures that only the final part is shown in a load of the JT assembly.
www.jcb.com
NX 8.5 with TC 8.3
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
NX 8.0.3.4 mp2, TC 8.3
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
Industry creates wealth!
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
Dare I say, you work for a stupid company. It would be like buying a complete set of Craftsmen handtools and then throwing away all of the open-end wrenches because there were also box-end wrenches of the same size. While they both loosen and tighten bolts, they are designed for being used in different circumstances.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
-Dave
NX 9, Teamcenter 10
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
Also, is there any ER in process, to make re associating Promotions possible? If not, I will spawn one.
-Dave
NX 9, Teamcenter 10
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
As for adding more 'WAVE-like' behaviors to Promotions, to some extent this may be counterproductive and could potentially lead to even MORE confusion about which approach to use when.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
Just out of curiosity, if a site has the "promoted" option disabled, will it also disable these new functions that use it internally? Or does the 'disable promotions' option only apply to explicitly created promoted bodies, allowing the system to use them internally as needed?
www.nxjournaling.com
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
Anyway, 'WAVE vs. Promotion' is always a hot topic - and this thread proves this once again. Obviously, promotion better models the real-life situation and does not create problems with assembly drawings and weight calcualtion. If it supported re-parenting better, it would be the ideal tool for machining after assembly.
John, could you tell us a little more history? When did Promotion first appear? When was it re-done from scratch? When did appear the tools which use promotions as the engine, like Assembly Cut and Deformation? These are actually useful things to know because they can serve as a powerful argument when Promotion has to be... well, promoted.
Industry creates wealth!
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
As for where NX is leveraging the Promotion tools, Assembly Cut was introduced in NX 3.0 (around 2004). Sorry but I don't have a definitive date for Deformable Parts, but they've been around since at least NX 1.0 or NX 2.0.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
-Dave
NX 9, Teamcenter 10
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
Ben Loosli
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
-Dave
NX 9, Teamcenter 10
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
C:\Program Files\Siemens\NX 9.0\UGDOC\html_files\nx_help\en_US\graphics\graphicLibrary\nx\videos\cad\cast_and_machined_parts_workflow.htm
Michael Fernando (CSWE)
www.solidCADworks.com
Tool and Die Designer
Siemens NX V9.0 + PDW
SWX 2013 SP3.0 X64
PDMWorks 2013
Logopress3
FastForm Advance
FormatWorks
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
But if I only needed to utilize a face (maybe even just an edge?) of a particular body then I would use WAVE.
I guess there are loading issuea with one compared to the other but that has not been a concern for us.
RE: Machining after assembly. WAVE/Promotion
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.