Can you Merge Parts from Multiple ToolBoxes?

[MDGroup]

We have multiple different tool-box locations that have been created and used over the years. Different users, different SW versions, etc. Obviously very bad practice, and it has gotten to the point where we need to resolve the issue.

Can I merge together different toolboxes?

Suppose Pan Cross Head_AI has 5 size configurations in one tool box.
In another toolbox Pan Cross Head_AI has 8 different size configurations.

I would like to merge the 2 so that a new Pan Cross Head_AI part contains all 13 size configurations. Then this single part should open up to the correct size in all assemblies.

Is this possible?

I could create a brand new part and set-up all new configurations with all of the sizes. But there is a lot of property information (p/n, description, etc) already stored in each configuration that I don't want to re-enter.

Any suggestions? Thanks

 

[SBaugh]

Unfortunately no you cannot merge multiple toolboxes together. Reason is you can't merge 2 files together whether they have the same name or not. You can't do that even with Windows files, and that is the way SW works with its files.

You will have to select the toolbox part with the most configs and use that one. What configs are missing you will just have to replace when you need too.

It's unfortunate that you ran your Toolbox on multiple machines versus a multi-user Environment. Multi-user environments will fix this and force all users to use a single DB location and this will not happen in future assemblies.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[mjcole]

Depending on the number of fasteners you use in all your assemblies a possible solution would be to use the Save separate parts option so that you can get a Shared Location which would have a separate toolbox part for each size instead of configurations. Although if you have a huge amount of parts the space needed would be larger but it would be easier to make sure all your used sizes are accounted for. Having 1 Larger toolbox folder that is shared would save disc space on the individual machines.

Of course you'd want to have a standard naming convention. Then you can find out which people have the most configs with proper part number parameters and have them save the files off.

Another Idea that just came to mind is to use a Excel - Configuration Table for the Toolbox Parts to make it easier to edit the configurations' parameter information. Then you could delete the rows in the spreadsheet and choose to keep the configurations. Then you can create the data from the missing configurations by using an external spreadsheet.

Contact your VAR and see if they can submit your Toolbox Databases for SolidWorks to merge the database files if that's possible. I've had that done before when I was supporting a customer who didn't properly update their toolbox and lost some of their config data. Eventually you won't have the problem of seeing huge default config screws appearing in assemblies when configuration is missing in local database.

Michael

 

[MDGroup]

Michael,
That is a great idea that could work.

If I understand your idea correctly:

Open an individual screw file, create a design table with all of the information from the different configurations, export that data to an excel sheet.

Repeat this process for each of the different occurances of the same screw type.

Combine all of the information into a single 'master' excel file.

Now create a new screw, inport this 'master' excel data into the design table and it should re-creat every configuration.


Anyone have comments on whether this should work or not?