Assembly-Level Features

[pwasha]

Hello, I'm wondering if someone could provide an example of when using Assembly-Level features (using Pro/E) could end up hurting you down the road. It's to my understanding that they can bring in unnecessary overhead that slows down performance and can possibly create unwanted external or circular references... but I'm struggling to come up with a pictured example (preferably a common occurance) to show when or how this could really bite you.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks
Edited by: pwasha

 

[skraba]

Where we use assembly level features are holes on the flanges of welded pieces which are assembled into the upper level assembly and where holes are intersecting more than one part in welded piece.


When creating assembly level features as are assembly holes you need to be careful with automatic intersecting, since Pro/E will automatically add components to the automatic intersecting which do not even "touch" the hole. With that regeneration time will significantly increase. Be sure to "turn off" automatic intersecting and only include parts that holes really intersect. The same applies with assembly cut.

 

[dr_gallup]

Assembly level features were much less stable at on time, not sure if that is true today. We make a number of parts that start out as a turned part and a stamped part that are brazed together and then machined into a family of parts. Initially we created the models as two parts that were assembled and then we added all the machining features as assembly cuts.

The models would regen and behave themselves just fine, could make drawings with shown dimensions, etc. Save everything and the next day all the assembly features would fail, had to redefine every one, save again, fail again. PTC could duplicate the problem, their solution was "don't do that". We changed to merging the two parts into a third part and adding all the machining features as cuts in the 3rd part. Works like a champ, never fails.

Problem may be fixed today but it would still be a lot of extra overhead to add all the features in assembly.