Managing components of an assembly on spreadsheet

[dnatxa]

Hi,

I work with big assembly (thousands of parts) and use arrangements. It would be much easier and faster for me to supress parts in external spreadsheet with some boolean value Y/N or 1/0. I imagine it should look like this:

[tt]__________| Arr.1 | Arr.2 | Arr.3 |
Part 1 ___|___1___|___0___|___0___|
Part 2 ___|___1___|___1___|___1___|
Part 3 ___|___1___|___1___|___0___|
... [/tt]

I found a video on youtube and this is exactly what I need. But I don't know, how to do that and if it in NX 7.5 or 8 works (it's NX 9 in video).

Could anyone explain how to do that? Or may be there are other better ways? Thanks!

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yes. it'll work in NX 7.5 or NX 8.0.

You create your Assembly. Assign expressions to control the suppression of the Components. Create a Spreadsheet with a list of Components where you can toggle their values to be '1' or '0' ('0' is Suppressed and '1' is un-Suppressed). Then link the NX Expressions controlling the suppression of Components to the cells in the spreadsheet containing the '1' or '0'. After you edit the spreadsheet, you save is and then go to NX and select Tools -> Update -> Update for External Change and the Assembly will update.

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.

 

[dnatxa]

Thank you for quick response, John!

Could you explain please how to get full list of components of my assebly in spreadsheet? Thanks again!

 

[kapmnit123]

Hi,
You need to go to your ASSEMBLY NAVIGATOR. Right click inside it .....Expand all Components ...Right click again inside the Assembly Navigator and choose Export to Spreadsheet.

Best Regards
Kapil

 

[dnatxa]

John, what exactly means "Assign expressions to control the suppression of the Components". Should I create a unique expression for each part of the assembly?

kapmnit123, thanks!

 

[JohnRBaker]

Only the ones that you wish to control.

In your Assembly file, create as many expressions as you expect there to be Components that you wish to control the suppression of, giving them names like 'Comp_01', etc. Initially give them all the value of '1'. Note that they do not need to have any dimensionality or units, a simple 'Constant' will do fine.

Now go to the Assembly Navigator, select a Component of interest, press MB3 and select the 'Suppression...' option. When the dialog opens, if you're using more than one Arrangement, select the Arrangement(s) that you wish this suppression setting to apply to. If you wish it to apply to ALL of them, select the button labeled 'Select All Arrangements'. Now toggle ON the 'Controlled by Expression' option and enter the name of the previously created relevant expression name below the item you just selected and hit OK.

Now all that you need to do to control the suppression status of a Component is to go to the Expression dialog and edit the value of the relevant expression, changing it from '1' to '0' ('1' is un-suppressed and '0' is suppressed).

That should get you started.

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.